


City Truths

by UnicornPunk6



Series: The Divided Cities [1]
Category: No Fandom
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Bars and Pubs, Blackjack, Christopher - Freeform, Corruption, Cybernetics, Cyberpunk, Death, Doc - Freeform, Dystopia, Epic Battles, Fantasy, Friendship, Future, Gambling, Gambling Addiction, Gangs, Georgina - Freeform, Government, Indoctrination Theory, Jack - Freeform, Kidnapping, Kings & Queens, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Lies, Manipulation, Martha - Freeform, Metal bender, Military, Mind Reader, Multi, Mutant Powers, Neon - Freeform, Novel, Past, Past Child Abuse, Period-Typical Racism, Pyro - Freeform, Science Fiction, Steampunk, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Technology, Trans Male Character, Utopia, Wall - Freeform, War, cyber, elijah - Freeform, friends - Freeform, piers - Freeform, royal family, steam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-05-18 10:11:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14850806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnicornPunk6/pseuds/UnicornPunk6
Summary: Elijah believes that Acrisius is the greatest to have ever been built and that Proetus is the filth that works below it. Proetus' steampunk technology is primitive compared to Acrisius' tech that can literally feed you in virtual reality. He believes that there is peace between the two cities divided by a wall.He believes the lies.But that doesn't stop him from sneaking into Proetus to gamble illegally at the age of 17. He's good at it too, until he keeps losing because of an unwelcome voice in his head.He's offered a choice - help an anti-government group find their missing friend or keep living as he is. The chance to find his missing brother is on the line and he can take it, or he can stay out of trouble.As he goes on his journey, he meets more people with abnormal abilities, like the voice in his head and the right-hand man of a sketchy gang that Elijah owes a lot of money to. And they're all going missing.Elijah has the chance to see what's behind the curtain, but the question is, will he believe what he sees and turn his back on what he thought was true?





	1. The Suicide King

**Author's Note:**

> This is a working progress so please bare with me. This is my first draft and I will edit it once I've finished it. Notice any mistakes, or have any tips, please, share them! Also note, there are LGBTQ+ characters, I just don't want to be too in your face about it.

The count is plus eighteen, the chances are definitely in favour of us players. I tap the dingy green table with my brown poker chip. The table had seen better blackjack days as it wobbles under my slight pressure. Coasters rest under the legs to balance it, but someone kicked one from underneath a while ago now and I can’t move it back because I may lose count. The other players and the dealer don’t really pay it much attention, but it’s been eating at me for an hour now. I wouldn’t be surprised if the table was second hand when they brought it, just like everything in Proetus. The buildings, the furniture, the items, the clothes, the people and their values; everything is rubbish from Acrisius and the people are like magpies whenever they visit the dump. The dealer places a yellowed card before me, but I find myself look at his permanently tanned hands from decades on farms. It’s still covered in horse muck and he’ll never wash it off, no matter how long ago he left the fields for the game.

I received an ace off the dealer which brings my count to thirteen if I count it as low.

“Unlucky thirteen” The dealer says softly at me, a laughable remark when you think about. When you play games of chance, you’re expected to have lucky charms. A saddened expression creeps across my face when I let out a mocking chuckle.

Plus seventeen. I glance at the dealer’s cards, the face-up card being a two. I knock an old, slightly chewed brown poker chip between my top and bottom teeth. I tap the table again and gain a two, bringing my count to a fifteen and the running count back to plus eighteen. I risk going bust, but then I might go bust. Instead, I wave my hand over my cards, careful not to touch them or I’ll have horse faeces on my hands. I’m already covered in dirt as it is. Just by stepping into Proetus you become filthy. You practically breathe in dirt. The miasma in the pub is bad enough, with a high stench of old and new sweat. The scent of booze burns my nostrils and I bet my brown chip that it tastes worse.

“Wow,” someone says really close to me. His voice is hoarse, like he is a smoker or just has an illness. I assume it belongs to the fellow player next to me looking at his new cards.

I wave him off anyway and focus on that player’s cards, leaning in and resting my hands on the table. Like mine, they’re dirty, yellowing and fraying at the corners – one of which appears to have been chewed. By a diseased ridden rodent. I scuttle back into my chair and gaze at my poker chip in horror. Nausea rises in my stomach at the thought, and I gag. I shake the idea out of my head and think about to plus eighteen. I hold the chip between two fingers and keep my hands by my side. The player, who I’m assuming is some sort of mechanic due to the fact he’s wearing welding goggles on his forehead, asks for another card that keeps the running count at eighteen. He asks for another. I can feel him holding his breath as the dealer presents him with a card valued at seven. He curses to himself as the dealer takes his bet of 290,000 units. He then proceeds to slink away from the table with defeat. I don’t watch him go. Plus eighteen. I really don’t understand why these people bet when they don’t have the money to even pay rent a lot of the time. They should take that sort of money and spend it on food and shelter for their family. Or perhaps they’re playing to make more money to spend on their family. But if you’re playing blackjack and not counting, is there really much point in betting? He might as well be betting on blood sports. The final player left at my table asks for a hit and then stands. The running count remains plus eighteen.

I fiddle with the poker chip in my hand by my side as the dealer flips over his face down card. A high ace and a two leaves the running count as plus seventeen. Obliged by the rules, he takes another card from the shoe that has the number three scrawled over it in atrocious handwriting. His count goes up to a seventeen and the running count goes back up to an eighteen.

I curse under breath, slapping the edge of the table as the dealer takes my chips for the house. 100,000 units gone. My cheeks flare red as I sit back and cross my arms, huffing at my loss. Piers will not be happy.

“Ow that has got to be painful. Who’s Piers?” I jump at the voice. It’s the same one as before. It’s so loud and close, it could be the remaining player, but I’ve heard his voice before it’s more soft and silky, not scratchy like the one I’m hearing. Not forgetting that other players never talk to me. Though that may be my fault. I’m too concentrated on the cards to start talking to anyone else. Even then, people don’t normally strike up a conversation with me. And who would ask about Piers? We’re playing in one of his many pubs under his authority. I turn away from the table and find the sketchy man at the bar watching me with pure concentration. He isn’t talking to anyone, isn’t smiling. In fact everyone in the bar is at least three feet away from him. His vibes scream anger and the expression on his face means I have to get rid of it. That’s what happens when you make a deal with the deal, I suppose. He holds a half empty pint of god knows what in his hand that has been long forgotten. He raises his head back, still remaining eye contact. I nod at him, accepting what he wants of me before turning back to the worn table and chucking my bet of 50,000 units onto the table.

The count was… plus 16? So now it’s plus 17 again? Fucking shit.

The dealer deals us both our next hand; I receive a nine pair and decide to split them.

“Ah, so you’re following basic strategy and counting cards? You’re a walking stereotype of all gamblers everywhere. The professionals would be ashamed of you. You’ve lost count anyway.” The voice sounds bored, as if I’m not entertaining enough for him. I hold my breath, waiting for the dealer to throw me out. If I can hear it, then surely the dealer can too – he did once punch a sore loser for uttering under his breath a dark threat towards the dealer’s family. I wonder if this is insanity finally taking hold. I didn’t expect it to happen for another decades.

I ask for another card on my two hands. The one hand totals to a fourteen and the other totals to a nineteen, which I stand on. However, I do take one more on my smaller hand. It goes bust. I sigh, but at least I’ve got the nineteen to count upon. The king in that hand is torn through the middle and barely kept together with tape. The dealer then turns to the remaining player, who asks for one card. He leans forward, covering his hand over his mouth as he thinks. He scowls at the cards before shaking his head. We both sit back simultaneously and wait for the damage of the dealer whose face up card is a ten. I tap my poker chip against my chair leg, hoping for a low number then a face card. Praying to the devil that his game favours the players. Please...

He flips his card over. Ace of Spades! The card of death.

Fuck! I rub my face with my hands before quickly withdrawing them. I don’t want to catch the plague from this rat-infested bar. The dealer takes my money.

If I keep playing, I might lose all my money.

But I could also win it all back.

I pocket my lucky poker chip and play with the chip pile before me that’s getting smaller and smaller by the rounds. If I bet half, I can make up for what I lost if I win, but I also don’t know the running count so. Or the true count for that matter, though I never keep that in my head. Never lose your concentration, as my brother used to say. Or you’ll start gambling rather than winning. Guess I’m a gambler now. All because of that fucking voice. I count out my chips, feeling the cool plastic with my fingertips and bet half of what I’ve got left today.

The voice chuckles softly, amused at my annoyance. “Wow, you’re so easy to anger and I haven’t done much yet, Elijah Triggs.” I growl loathingly at the sound of my name.

I gaze around them room, finally letting myself pay attention to my surroundings. Behind me stands the grimy bar. It’s lit up poorly by lanterns and candles, a terrible idea when you realise that there’s also alcohol back there and it’s also the favourite seat of the drunk regulars who are clinging onto the counter. They knock over a flame, they could light the whole place up and we’d all die in the flames. The bar staff stand in front a small choice of unbranded alcoholic drink, mainly rums and ales. I can almost taste the bitterness in my mouth from the first time I tried those vile drinks. I don’t understand why those fools would even want to drink the stuff. Though, the saying is the more you drink, the better it tastes. The drunks at the bar drool like animals over the barmaid’s breasts every time she moves around. To my right, I have the happy drunks, the ones who are here to celebrate or socialise and never really understand that no, you don’t want to join in singing their silly little song. Currently they sway side to side, holding their drinks up as they wail a slow folk song. Some of them are actually crying. I wish they wouldn’t sing so horribly, it’s hurting my ears. One corner, reeks of pee as someone was too drunk to find the lavatory. The other tables are filled with men who can either handle their drink well or are there so they can talk about their secret uprising plans without the fear of anyone hearing, and more importantly, remembering what they said. The lighting is low as the candles become close to melting completely, but I believe it’s to help hide the dirt of the place, make it harder to see the rodents that scuttle about.

The voice laughs. “You really don’t like this place, do you? You look about 12, you shouldn’t even be here. It’s illegal or something. You might get arrested.”

_Thanks for the concern, but it’s not needed. Since when has Proetus cared about being on the right side of the law?_

He doesn’t respond. _Thought so_

I turn my attention back to my cards - seven pair. This. is. Good. For once, I can win with this. I gesture for my dealer to split my cards and place the other half of my money on the second card. I twiddle the lucky chip between my fingers in my pocket as I ask for more cards. He places two cards on the first seven, so I get a score of 16 and I don’t risk going bust. On the second seven, which is a little defaced, I ask for cards twice, totally that hand to seventeen. I can’t risk going again and basic strategy dictates I stop now. I sit back and patiently wait for the remaining player to make his play, tapping my brown chip impatiently. I watch the dealer carefully flip over his second card. He already has a queen. The second card is a three, making his total thirteen. He places another card down on the table. It’s a six of hearts.

The world stands still while I stare at cards before me, the queen’s face mocking me with her smug expression and my chest squeezes, choking me. My heart is caught between two breaths; my last and my next. My mind frantically runs about, screaming so loudly the noise of the bar is nothing but white noise.

I.

Lost.

Everything.

“FUCK!” I shout, slamming my hands down on the grubby table. The chair falls back on the floor. The pain in my hands felt good, calming even. I pant heavily over the table, attempting to calm down and catch my breath. I let out a nervous laugh but stop when I hear a forced cough behind me.

I slowly spin on heel and find Piers standing behind me and over the chair. His rolled-up sleeves reveal his weird, skinny muscled arms that are tanned, and the skin is cracked like scales. His shirt is an off-white colour and reeks of bleach that overpowered the soft scent of lavender. There’s faint red saints on the front that his maid tried to get out but failed.

“My maid couldn’t get the blood out, she was punished effectively for it.” He stretches his mouth into a horrible, yellow toothy grin. It stays for the second and drops when I don’t react. His tongue pokes out for a second to lick his lips like a snake. Black braces hold his trousers up that are obviously too big from his skinny waist and his shoes are squeaky clean and shining like stars on his feet. I wonder how many beating his maids had to endure before they were up to his standards.

“Where’s my 30% cut?” His voice is raspy and his breath smells like old cigarettes. He would smoke now to add to his little demonstration of power, but I’ve chucked enough cigarettes from his mouth for to him to realise that it’s cheaper to not blow that foul thing in my face. A small, insincere smile spreads across his stubbly chin that doesn’t reach his soulless eyes that could very well be a portal to Helheim. His nose, crooked and scarred, has seen one too many fights. Let me assure you, the other men came out worse off, usually robbed of their riches and their lives. His facial features are too small for his square head that’s enlarged with a receding hair line.

I return his empty smile, “Sorry, I lost it all.” I shrug and walk past him, knocking my shoulder against his. I resist the need to rub the area that impacted him, biting my lip to redirect the focus pain in my shoulder.

He wraps his hand around my lanky arm, gripping it painfully. “Ah ah, you know my deal.” I bite down harder on my lip. I sigh.

I rub my tongue against my teeth, fully aware of the eyes on us and the silence surrounding us. “You get 30% of my winnings, but I’m allowed to lose once and pay 60% next time. So, let go of my arm, I need to get back to make sure my mother isn’t dead.”

He laughs, slapping me hard on the back. “This is why you’re my favourite customer. So ballsy.”

I shrug at him, “Now, excuse me, I’ll pay you back tomorrow night but right now, got to go home.” I walk through the pub, snapping my fingers and giving a very casual two finger wave. The eyes follow me as I saunter to the door.

I push the door with my body, careful to make sure my skin doesn’t touch it and step out onto to the streets.

I look up, closing my eyes as the wind blows softly on my face, nipping at my nose and fingertips as it cools down my temper. I sniff, hoping to smell something nicer than the vomit, alcohol, sweat and piss that was lingering in the air in the pub, but my nose is greeted with the stench of human shit and piss that gets dumped onto the streets. Death hangs loosely in the air, as does the smell of the burning fuel source - aether - that dirties up the air. Proetus has always had such a lovely, inviting miasma. Smog covers the view of the mystical stars that watch over me. That’s all my mother would talk about, when we were younger, is the stories of the stars. I don’t believe they’re there, or if they are, they wouldn’t care about our little rock. The street lamps struggle to fend off the smog and light up the street, a losing battle when the factories are only ever turned off on Sundays. I struggle to see where I step, trying hard to keep an eye out so my boot doesn’t find itself in a pile of crap.

I begin to walk down the humans littered the street, coughing and dying, begging for help. I don’t have any money to give them. My pockets are as empty as theirs at this current moment in time. Children lay sleeping on the filth covered road after a long day of… whatever it is they do. Homelessness is ridiculously high in this area of the city. Especially for children. But no one cares. I pretend like I haven’t noticed them, picturing bags of rubbish in their place instead. Clearly their parents and masters agree if they’d so willingly let their workforce sleep in the streets. It’s horrid of course, our child labour protection laws can’t even protect them from this life. They should be school, however it’s not like the majority of Proetus can afford that; education is a pleasure of the rich I believe my father once said, if their parents can’t afford to give it to them, then their children should be willing to help provide for them. I was inclined to agree with him. Children die in the factories every day. And it’s not like the money the children would bring in to their home go onto anything they need, that was evident enough by the fact they are sleeping on the streets, bare foot and in clothes that are falling about apart. I can stand and complain about it, but that’s about as useful as the other option I have – ignore it. Prostitutes call out seductively at the passing married men, most of whom actually take the bait. These men are drunk and gentlemen of sorts - wearing top hats and monocles, carrying pointless canes in their hand for the only purpose of making them look rich. A few faces I recognise from my father’s circle, but I keep staring dead ahead, following an unspoken rule. The whores ignore me as they regard me for being too young to want their service. They’re right, but for the wrong reasons.

My fingers go numb and stiff. I stuff them in my thin pockets, which help a little but not drastically. These fingerless gloves are falling apart at the seams and definitely not made for any type of weather. My body begins to shake as the cold begins to get me, however I try to ignore it. Except there is nothing else to focus on as night fell a long on and I can’t see the same, weird looking buildings that line the streets. I sigh and let my thoughts wonder about the game I just lost. I have to pay back Piers otherwise there would be trouble and I’m down 300,000 units as it is. I’ve got more than enough stashed away somewhere, yet letting him know that is asking to give him half of what I’ve got saved.

Eventually, I find myself at the foot of a reinforced concrete giant that stands three hundred feet up. It’s a barrier between the rich and prospering Acrisius and the poor, dying Proetus. It’s towers over both cities, standing as a reminder that we will never be one however surrounds Proetus like the Berlin Wall enclosed East Berlin back in 1961. Standing next to it, I feel small and belittled, just as the wall intended to do. At the top, while you can’t see them from down here, we are assured that there are guards ready and waiting to fire down at one who is foolish enough to climb up it. I say if anyone can reach the top should be let into the opposing city. No one dares to. Most people I know are glad that the wall is there, serving as a reminder of Acrisius’ power, _our_ power. I follow the wall along, brushing my hand against it, barely feeling the rough surface and occassionally feeling evidence of posters that had been ripped off.

In the distance, I can see white glow of one of the entry points. The bright light juxtaposes against Proetus’ candle lit streets and home, one of the many differences between us and them. We have actual electricity. Entry point has a steel mesh fence in front of it to protect the guards. It already has a couple of dents that were left from the previous attack. The guards’ booth is surrounded by bulletproof glass, not that it has ever been useful. I stride towards it, pressing the small buzzer on the mesh gate. Up close you can see that the iron wire is rusting away, the spec come off onto my fingers, so I rub them together. The guard leaves his booth and greets me with a big smile.

“Evening Elijah, ID card?”

I feel for it my waistcoat pockets and pull the plastic card. It has the name Samuel Triggs next to a hideous picture of me that looks like it was taken as a mugshot by the police as my face screams murderer. The date of birth is wrong too, saying I was born on the 1st of November, six years and five months before my actual year of birth. I smile sadly at it before I hand it over to Gerald the guard. He knows it’s a fake, or at the very least, isn’t legally active, thanks to Martha. This is the pleasure of this entry point, it always looks the other way.

The guard comes back, unlocking the gate that lets out a high-pitched squeak as it opens. Gerald leads me to the glass booth, which is filled with neglected files that are more than likely to be about the people are wanted by the state. This entry point let’s them collect dust in their boxes, letting anyone through who can pay the right price. It’s a price I personally aren’t willing to pay, but that’s what Martha is for. The place would be close down and bricked up if any of the higher ups were aware that it helps smuggle drugs, firearms, or anything else that doesn’t belong to the people who really ought not to be tempting fate. But that’s the Goldilocks Entry motto if it had one. There are two desks by the window. One has papers scattered about with coffee stains all over them. Mugs are stacked up against the documents, one having a very unpleasant odour emitting from it. The owner of said desk has a few pictures of children celebrating Christmas and birthdays over the years with a woman who shares the same eyes and hair as her offspring. One photo is of a dancer with long blonde hair for a boy. I remember him, he is Harry’s son and used to dance with my brother.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight, are you okay?” Gerald asks, sitting in his chair while I frantically look around for my clothes as they aren’t on the pile files I left them on.

“Yes, I’m fine.” I wave him off absently. “Where are my clothes?” I ask him, snapping a little.

He chuckles at me and swivels his chair round to his desk. Unlike Harry, Gerald’s desk is much neater. A tidy pile of paperwork that he is half way lying through, and his keyboard is put out of the way under his computer monitor so he can work. He has no photos of his loved ones cluttering his space, unlike Harry, as he doesn’t really have one for his young age, but he does have a nearly completed rubix cube. Gerald bends down, opens the bottom draw of his desk. I hear something rustling before he spins back around and hands me my neatly folded black clothes.

“The Sargent came earlier for a check, so I had to put them away otherwise he’ll be asking questions.” He smiles sweetly at me. I’ve always liked that smile. I can’t say that anything about his illegal activity as my hands aren’t exactly clean either, but he is genuinely a sweet guy and one of the very few who can’t get on my very last nerve.

I nod my head, understanding that he still has a job to keep and wonder into the bathroom, pushing the door with my body so I don’t have to touch the germ-infested handle. Boys don’t normally wash their hands. The light’s automatically flickers on and I place my clothes by the sink. The bathroom is small like the guards’ booth and impeccably white and clean – I must remember to ask for the military’s cleaning service. A faint smell of bleach lingers in the air, a comforting smell compared to the stench of Proetus’ streets. It’s a little warmer in here, but not much warmer than it is outside tonight.

I strip off the faded, fraying grey waistcoat that had seen better days, and dropped it at my feet. I then discard the dirty shirt and slip off my ugly green fingerless gloves. The flat cap that rests on my head also falls onto the jumble of unclean clothes. I grab some of the toilet paper, wetting it and adding soap so I can scrub away the impurities on my skin. The touch of the warm water is comforting as I thoroughly wash the mud off my face, scrub at the dirt underneath my finger nails. I even take my poker chip from my pocket and clean that too. The toilet paper disintegrates fairly quickly in my fingers, so cleaning up will take longer than I hoped. I then dry myself off and stare in the mirror. I’m as pale as the room behind me, skinner than most my age, but not because of some illness or eating disorder. Weight just never sticks to my body. There’s scars across my chest from a surgery I underwent a year ago. I tug at my black hair, revealing my brown roots and the white patch growing at the front. I curse, it’s not like I can even pick up dye on my way back home. I sigh, still not believing at the amount I had lost. I should’ve left when I lost count. At least I won’t be keep Piers waiting.

I sit on to the floor, pulling muddy boots and socks off my feet, and then remove the peg trousers. All of them are dropped onto the messy bundle next to me. I rise back to my feet now only in my boxer shorts. I slide on my black dress shirt, struggling with the backwards buttons of men’s shirts. Once I’ve managed that, I climb into my black trousers that fit nice and snug in all the right place and then I put on my pointy dress shoes which are a little too big for me. Damn my small feet. I spent months searching for a pair to fit them. Last and by no means least, I slip on my black tailored suit jack and button that up too, so I’m at least somewhat protected from the bitterness of the weather tonight.

From rags to riches in minutes. Just like one of Martha’s shows. I think.

I grab the chip that I left in the peg trouser pocket and shoved it in my jacket pocket before scooping up the rags and dropping them on the usual pile of files I normally leave them on. I exist the booth, not bothering to waste my time with saying farewells to Gerald. I doubt he cares.

I come to official border between our cities, hesitant for a moment. I then step into my city, Acrisius, with a sigh of relief.

My city, unlike Proetus, is a place of high class. Everything you do must be in season or suffer from social humiliation. I stroll through the streets with my head held up high with pride and yet have my hands casually in my pockets. The high-street is filled with neon signs that do a better job of being streetlamps rather than adverts. I seriously doubt anyone buys anything that they’re trying to sell to you. I look up at the skyscrapers that fall a little short of the wall I’ve leaving behind. Still no stars. However I can almost hear the music that the parties at the top of the world are dancing and drinking to, that are filled with the rich, the famous and the fabulous, which are a different kind of star. My journey takes me past an underground club I’m too young to enter, but they off a break for those who are old enough and didn’t make it into the penthouses. However, it smells like piss, so I don’t really see the appeal. The music booms obnoxiously from the small metal door that’s guarded by two excessively buff men. Then again, the club is more inviting than the pubs in Proetus. Those who are looking for another type of adventure, sit on walls, blasting their own terrible taste in music, wearing urban fashions that my best friend would scold them for. High tops trainers, animal print jeans, flashy wrist bands with sunglasses that neon rimmed and most likely connected to Reality Check. They jeer at me, making some kind of comment that I should be in bed. I ignore the children and keep walking home. The city at night is bright and clean, the street lamps in this neighbourhood have been turned off for as long as I can remember. The feeling of home floods across my chest like a friend embracing you when you see them again after the school holidays.

Pain slowly occurs in my feet and I try to change how I step on, but it’s no use. This night is full of things that I should’ve done, like take my car to the border.

I turn a corner and face a street that’s filled with three floor houses. The street is lit up with dim lamps. I drag my feet to the last house in the cul-de-sac and trek through the perfectly trimmed front garden. It’s too dark to see the dying flowers, or the paint peeling off the hideous fake well that planted in the middle of it. My father loves unnecessary things like that, shows that we have status and class apparently. I had no choice but to agree. The garden light didn’t turn on as I trudge closer to the door, which leaves me feeling around for the hand scanner. I must leave a note for the gardener. I find the scanner and place my hand on it, waiting for the door to unlock,

It clicks, and I step inside, shutting the door behind me. I flick the light and blink at the brightness of the lights. The hall way is an off-white colour, not that I really care about that, and photographs are lined up on the walls. There’s one of my father in his uniform with way too many medals on his chest. He smiles sternly at the photographer, not that anyone can see it with his bushy black moustache. There’s a few other photos too, most of which are of my parents with fake smiles plastered on their faces. There’s only one with boy with jet black hair who’s a little older than me. He is posing in a flamboyant way with his hands dramatically sliding down his body and his legs apart. The boy has his eyes closed and his face is bored. He always hated dancing. I remove my shoes, placing them on their spot with the rest of the shoes like soldiers in formation. It feels good to take them off, but they still ache. I wonder down the corridor and lean against the wall before holding onto the door frame to swinging around it to find my mother laying on the sofa.

I flick the light on to truly see the damage. Her slender pale arm dangles off the scarlet sofa, her dressing robe exposing her body as it falls off the settee with her limb. Fortunately, she decided to put on pink, silk PJ’s. Half of her face is hidden behind the headset which has K.O. on the front screen. It signifies that it’s safe to take it off her, so I do. Her long, blonde, damaged hair is stuck to her sweaty face. Her face shows her age like a picture book, the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth but she’s still beautiful. I place the headset on the on cabinet before hoisting my mother to her feet. I wrap one of her arms around my neck and grip her skinny waist.

I then proceed to drag her feet against the laminated floor and back down the hallway to the guest bedroom. I try not to drop her until I get to the bed. When I do, I roll the duvet onto her. The entire time she doesn’t wake up. Lucky. I gaze at her from the doorway for a second before leaving to switch off the lights in the living room and hall.

I stumble into up the stairs and until my bedroom while unbuttoning my suit and shirt. I close my bedroom door behind me, not even bother to turn a lamp on. I strip down to my boxer shorts as my eyes begin to feel too heavy to keep open. The blurry red numbers next to my bed on my alarm read 2:37am. It’s been a busy night, I deserve this. I fold my clothes up, absently dropping them onto the floor somewhere before climbing under my duvet covers

***

The pub is the same as the night before, perhaps fuller as the workers celebrate their last night of the working week. It’s mainly men, very few women are about on Saturdays. There’s a few boys too, probably trying to enjoy some quality time with their fathers or playing adult. It’s louder too, but I’m well practiced at ignoring the white noise. The dealer, who was apparently not as practiced, is an angry black man who has been dealing with racist remarks all night long about how he is black thus can’t read the cards before him. His face is old and wrinkled like worn leather. Some drunken idiot nearly knocked the guy off his feet just to tell him that his hair is as curly and as white as sheep’s wool. This earned the drunken bugger a punch in the face and a broken nose. The old man’s eyes look exhausted, his soul looks exhausted.

Running count is plus eight, the true count is four. I must remember that, I can’t afford to lose again.

I twiddle the brown chip in my hand, staring blankly at the table. Plus eight, I play with the chips with my spare hand, the stack nowhere near as it was yesterday – before I lost it all that is. I gently toss the minimum bet of 10,000 units onto the table, two dark blue chips and four grey chips scatters across the table. Plus eight.

The house deals out our cards, gently but quickly placing them before myself and the other two players. Nine, eight, nine, ten, ten, ten, nine. And then the dealer’s mystery card.

I have an eight and a four before me, one of which looks brand new, making it stand out against the eight of diamonds that was scrawled on a roughly cut out piece of card. So classy and elegant, I wonder why no one else from Acrisius comes to gamble here. Plus nine. I tap the table with my lucky brown poker chip and am handed a jack. The count returns to plus eight. Wait, fuck. I’ve gone bust. Shit. The dealer turns to the other players while I sit there sulking at my loss. I watch the middle-aged, balding man next to me leaves his hand, not willing to risk getting a ten-card. Plus eight. The last player, a younger white man with curly brown hair, asks for another, getting a blackjack. The remains plus eight.

Happiness floods across his face. He claps, cheering for himself. The pub pays no attention to him, all too busy trying to drink away their woes and dying of liver failure before they hit forty. Even one in the bar seems to be in their sixties, but then that’s the price of now having cosmetic surgery to their disposal and opting for natural beauty that is really quite ugly. But then if you’re blind drunk, like most of these bastards, you can’t see that your wife looks like roadkill that’s been dragged across the floor for a mile.

The dealer flips his torn second card, revealing an ace. The running count turns to a plus seven and his count is fourteen. I lean forward in my rickety wooden chair, holding my poker chip in my mouth. My face is so close to the table, I can smell the lingering scent of booze and hold vomit. I shoot back in my chair, trying not to gag. I don’t believe in crossing fingers for good luck, but in this moment, fingers on my right hand cross over.

I mutter to myself, “Come on monkey. _Come on monkey,”_ over and over. The dealer places another card on the table, revealing an ace. Count is plus six and the dealer goes bust. “Yes!” I cheer, my clap is muted by my gloves. I lost, but the sense of the dealer losing too is too great. He takes away my bet and gives the other two players their winnings. The one who got the blackjack, bet quite a lot on his hand, so he took his colourful array of chips to the bar to cash them in. That is a very good choice.

I throw another minimum bet at the table before the house deals us torn, ripped and the replaced cards before me and the remaining player. Six, seven, six, seven, eight, the mystery card.

I chew on my lucky poker chip as I stare down at the cards. They add up to eleven.

“So what you gonna do?” The intruder’s hoarse voice is loud in my head. I sigh loudly.

“Shut up and get out,” I mutter to myself, still staring at my cards. The man sat next to me glances at me and drags his chair over a little. The screech is just audible over the noise of the pub.

The intruder replies with a mocking laugh. “Like I would, you’re too fun to mess with.”

I roll my eyes and fling another minimum bet on the table. The dealer piles them up nice and tidy, and then hands me a card face down on the table. The corner of the card has been torn off, though I’m not sure how. We aren’t allowed to touch them.

He faces the next player, who decides to split his three pair. One of them is just written on a piece of card. He taps the table and the running count changes to an…

“You lost count again!” The voice mocks me. “You’re really not good at this, are you? And you’ve been counting for three years. Not much of a professional then, are you? Then again, gambling is a fool’s game.”

I scowl and wave my hand in the air like I’m trying to shoo the intruder out of my head. My eyes concentrated on the cards. That’s all that matter right now, is those damn cards. I chew on my poker chip, trying to recall the numbers in my head with my fingers crossed. I need all the luck I can get. The player hits again for his second hand, getting a king. My eyes widen, his cards are practically identical. He hits again and gets a two. Then again on the hand with the hand written three, which makes his count 23. He doesn’t seem at all phased by it, why would he? He has a second chance.

He hits once more on his final hand. Bust again.

“Wow, that’s really unlucky, isn’t it?”

I rub my temples and watch the dealer flip over his card. His count is now fourteen. Come on monkey…

YES! Dealer is bust! He flips over my remaining card. I chew on my tongue in anticipation.

Please be a ten, please be a ten…

Nine! Close enough. I still beat the bust dealer. He hands me my chips. Can’t believe I won 10,000 units. But that’s won’t be enough to please Piers. I lost around 300,000 units last night, so I would’ve paid him 9,000. Currently I have 90,000. I brought 110,000. He wouldn’t have no where near enough as he would like, even with the extra thirty percent he will be taking this time. The devil expects more than he lost, no excuses. At times like these, I almost regret selling my life to him.

“I say go all in this time,” the voice giggles in my head.

I scoff, “Yes, because that worked last night.”

He doesn’t respond, and the noise in my head sounds like static. I place a higher bet of 20,000 units with hope that my luck has changed. My first card is a yellowed nine with hopefully a dirt mark across it. The dealer’s first card is an ace of clubs and the next card could potentially get him a blackjack, so I put a side bet of 10,000 units down for insurance. The dealer then hands me three that’s falling apart and could very soon be two cards. He hands the player on my right his card and places down his mystery card. I decided to hit, seeing as my count is a twelve and I need to get higher than the house. The dealer hands me my third card, I bite on my poker chip and pray to some unforgiving god that it’s a seven or lower. He flips the card last second.

I choke out a laugh, then hiss a curse under my breath.

The face stares up at me and I glare back at the Suicide King.

 


	2. Chapter 2 of Spades

“What’s the damage Elijah?” The girl before me scowls as she crosses her arms. Her cleavage becomes more prominent, not that I’m looking at her that way. Or I don’t mean to look at her in a sexual manner, but it’s definitely the way she intended, and I am fairly certain that it violates a few dress code rules. “And don’t tell that you haven’t lost badly because you’ve been avoiding me all day.”

I let a sigh. I’ve hoping to avoid this conversation. We both sit down at the school table, opposite each other to force me to have some sort of eye contact. Setting my fruit salad down in front of me, I run my hands through my hair that still needs to be dyed. “My pockets are 539,000 units lighter. I’ve still got some to gamble with and my savings.” She leans over to give me a hard smack on the head. I yell out in pain and clutch my head in my arms and hands ready for when she strikes again.

“You aren’t throwing your savings down the toilet otherwise I am going to pull that ID card from the registry. Then you are stuck here.” She pauses for a second, tapping her chin as she properly thinks it through. I watch her shake her head vigorously and a candyfloss pink curly lock comes tumbling down from the pile of skilfully pinned hair on top her head. “That will never do because I’ll have to deal with Jack. I’ll just take your savings from you and splash out on a whole new wardrobe.”

Anger bubbles in my chest, nausea arises in my stomach. My hard-earned money spent on over-priced clothes, no chance. I stand up, slamming my hands down onto the table. My hands tingle so I rub them together.

“It’s not even that bad! You can buy six of those handbags from that Atlantis fashion designer that you like so much. Or four hundred and thirty pizzas! I’ve still got enough to gamble with. More than enough. It’s just paying back Piers. He’ll want his cut to be in the high hundred-thousands if I lose again.” I fall back into my seat and stab my fork into a strawberry and shove it into my mouth. It falls apart in my mouth, like I imagine the eyes of my enemies would.

Martha places her hand on her curly hip and rubs her temples with the other. My abrupt outburst seemed to got through to her so she changes the topic slightly. “I wish you hadn’t made that deal. I knew it would be a bad idea.”

I nod, agreeing her statement but it was too late now. Making deals with Piers is like making a deal with a devil – you’re stuck to the contract until you die or offer up a better one. In most cases, people tended to die because they couldn’t carry them out. “Pay with your pocket or pay with your life” I’ve heard him say plenty times to the poor souls that couldn’t pay with their pocket. Soon I’ll be one of those poor souls. I shake that unpleasant thought.

She wiggles her shoulders, her dress rustling, “Go on darling, give me your opinion since you keep staring at my clothes.” The cheeky smirk on her face shows off her dimples.

Her clothes have always made her stand out from the crowd due to the fact that she usually wears Proetus fashion. She says she does this so her the people of both cities can look up to their monarchy and not feel entirely alienated when they see the royal family who normally wear the modern clothes of Acrisius and sport our high technology. Today was like every other normal day, with her pink dress and the laced up front that pulls her body into a more refined shape. The corset pronounces her breasts in a sexy but prideful way. Her skirt is slightly layered up, stopping at her knees at the front but falling to her feet at the back. The dress is hemmed black lace on her skirts and three-quarter sleeves. She brings Acrisius with her black high-top trainers and fish net tights that show off her pale curvy legs. On her wrist is a pink smart watch.

I shove more food in my mouth. “Oo oof ife a wefhan ore.”

She chuckles, “Excuse me?” Martha sits back down on her chair as she rests her head on her hand.

I hold one finger up and chew my food faster and then repeat what I said: “You look like a western whore.”

She chortles, hiding her face behind her dinky hand. She bats her eyelashes. “Oh you flatter me, darling. You must have women falling to your feet with your charming words.”

I throw my head back and loud roar of laughter, “They fall to my feet dead!”

“Oh, a lady killer, are you? How sexy.” Martha winks at me, pushing me over the edge.

Pain rises up my sides, “Please… Please stop.” My face becomes wet and I wipe away the tears. I breathe heavily, trying to calm down.

We both fall silent as we eat our food. I shove the melon pieces into my mouth faster than I can eat so I end up looking like a fat hamster. For one I can hear the roar of the cafeteria, their laughing and bitching. One girl from the table behind us is squealing away about how she’s now an engaged woman. Her friends scream, yelling out and asking the usual questions. Her response to one query is that she’s wearing so many rings to help stop the attention of the important one. I search around, specifically looking at girls’ hands. A small piece of comfort rests in my head, I finally know why so many girls wear an obscene amount of jewellery on their hands. However that raises the next question, why hide it? Half the hall will be married off to the other half and the ladies in this room try to hide it instead of being proud of their agreement. The gentlemen ignore it or show off their bride to be. My father always says that children are pawns for their family and that we should be more than willing to please our parents by marrying into a different respectable family to strengthen our great city Acrisius.

I look up at my friend, pausing at her expression, an expression that I have seen before only a few times, once from the time when she discovered her boyfriend had cheated on her, another from the time when her grandfather had passed on. Her mouth is in a downward smile and her bottom lip is shaking with the pressure of everything she wanted to say. I reach over and pat her hand. The shaking stops under my touch. I stare at her, wondering what else to do. Glancing around, I hope to find some poor girl or boy who is wearing something that doesn’t match and pray that the horrid outfit is literally screaming in my face at the top of its lungs. I know that there is a handbag that screams when it opens - Martha was once ranting about the uselessness it had - so I hope someone brought one. Martha’s body stiffens under my hand, bring my attention back to her.

“Mother finally discovered father’s affair. She...” Tears well up in her eyes. Removing her hand from my grasp, she hides her face and her body shakes violently. I pat her head and continue to search for that horrendous screaming outfit.

She chuckles and looks up, her make-up is still perfect and her eyes, her eyes are glossy, puffy and red, but she manages to look beautiful; a trait I’m envious of. A big smile is plastered across her face, telling me everything that I need to know.

***

The walls are stained with soot and reek of piss. Rotten food must be hidden away in the crates that block out any light in the alleyway. They conceal me perfectly as I stand between them and the grimy brick wall at the end of the alley. I feel like an outlaw, hiding away like this, even though I technically am an unwanted criminal. The windows of the buildings surrounding me are broken and smashed, but I can still hear the inhabitants rummaging around; one house is swearing profusely at each other. The windows are a little above my head – some dumb genius thought it was a good idea to have windows above the height of the average human. However it does make the houses more difficult to break into, not that it would stop anyone even if they had anything of value. Squeaks of rodents in the corner make my breath hitch, I bring my hands and arms closer to my body in order to protect them from being touched. An ache stretches up my legs and I curse Jack for being late. I should’ve expected that, he’s always late whenever I wanted to meet up, but early when he wanted to.

The streets beyond this alley sound lively with the noises of deadly coughing fits, feet are dragged across the floor, and the grumbles and groans of the human version of rodents – the working class. They make sounds of animals, completely indistinguishable to the those from Acrisius but are perfectly understood by those of the same species. I suppose that makes me harsh, but then they should work to get out of Acrisius. It’s the end of the day shift of the factory nearby and not a single soul sounds pleased to leave alive. This time of day, a time I would’ve preferred to have avoided, reminds me of Acheron. I guess that would make Martha part of Hades’ security. She’d be terrible at the job: she lets me go to and from the place of hell to meet with the devil’s henchman who is still not here.

A warm glow lights up the alleyway, followed by: “You still there?”

I step out of the shadows and into the view of the man at the entrance holding a ball of fire in his hand. He shields it from the wind and from the sight of those on the street before letting the flame flicker wildly and disappear into smoke. I fold my arms across my chest and raise a brow. He ducks and holds his hands up in defence.

“I know, I know, I’m late.” I force a cough. “ _Very_ late,” he corrects.

He stands up straight and pulls out a flask from his trouser pocket to take a long swig at it. He reaches out and offers me the flask. I don’t take my eyes off the filthy metal that’s undoubtfully riddled with various deadly diseases that I do not want to risk catching. His dry, cracking fingers are covered in dirt too. He shakes it in hopes that the sound of the contents sloshing around would convince me to join in.

I shake my head at him, “I have to keep my head clear to win the game.” Heavens knows I need it.

Jack chuckles and pockets his flask. He’s a little older than me by a few months, and will definitely die before me because of an alcohol related disease. That is, if cholera, tuberculosis, polio, machine related injuries, or his job as Piers right hand man doesn’t kill him first. Martha bets it’s that his job would kill him, I put my money on the drink. “Were you drinking when you lost two times?” I shake my head. “Exactly, the way things be going, you might as well drink your troubles away, I say.” He sighs, “Piers ain’t happy, especially if he don’t get his money. He wants more than 300,000 to be _content,_ as he says. Double it to make him real chuffed.”

I curse loudly. Piers that… that… _leech._

“So why you want to talk to me? Doubt it’s about making that debt go away, is it? You didn’t even notice his threats last time. Must say, this time he’ll be extra inventive.”

I shake my head. “I let the debt get high, it’s my job to make it go away.” I then explain to Jack the reason why I’m losing, the voice in my head, how it’s distracting me thus causing me to lose count. This in turn, causes me to guess how much to bet like the uneducated filth I normally play next to. This I wouldn’t dare tell Martha – she still thinks Jack’s fire thing is a little magic trick, so she’ll think that I’m crazy. As I try to describe the voice, how it echoes through my head and dominates my own thoughts, I can see worry in his soft brown eyes. For a second I think he doesn’t believe me, that he thinks I’m angry.

Until he shakes his head in a panic, claiming not to know anything and stumbles ungracefully over his own words. He nervously grins at me, staring at me dead in the eye as he pulls on his braces. “N-no. Don’t know nothing about that, Elijah. Trust me, would I lie to you?”

The answer is yes. He would. Jack has lied to me more times than I can count and he knows that I know when he is. I let out a sigh, and I rub my temples to try to stop the headache I feel coming on. “Okay, sure Jack. Let me know if you hear anything, alright?”

His face completely transforms as he smiles at me, nodding his head, “Of course! Why wouldn’t I?” I don’t respond and he proceeds to walk out of the alley way before retreating back in, shaking his head and waving his finger in the air. “One more thing, take this. In case something goes down, or you get annoyed by that voice.” He cackles as he hands me a metal object. “I’m assuming that your dad has learned you how to shoot. Take care of yourself, Elijah Triggs,” and he strides off for the second time.

I brush my fingers over the cool steel metal, feeling the grooves of the design. It is overly elegant for Proetus, the swirls in the patterns are reminiscent of the wild west so it may have belonged to someone of the upper classes. Wouldn’t surprise me if Jack stole it from some bugger’s corpse after Piers or someone else killed them. Or he actually saved up to buy an unnecessarily beautiful gun. Father would say that it doesn’t matter what the gun looked like, as long as it can shoot straight and keep the holder alive then it is already doing its intended job. While I could never remember the different types or makes or even the parts of the gun (to my father’s disappointment), I can say that I have never seen a gun that had a glass tank at the top with green aether rocks sitting inside of it. It’s a design flaw, you can’t aim with a rock in the way. Still, it could come in handy one day. I drop the brass gun in my pocket, feeling it annoyingly bring my trousers down and completely throw off the weight symmetry in my clothing. I stare at the pocket as I move my body in natural ways to see if it’s too noticeable to anyone else – it doesn’t appear to be that obvious, but I suppose I’ll have to find out.

I leave the alley way and join the workers who are on their way home to on their way to work. Their bodies have a mixed odour of stale sweat and I believe I can smell old pee on the woman before me. She’s hunched over and has an old, stained shawl draped over her back. That might be where the smell of old pee is coming from. I slowly trudge along the street, my feet scraping against the murky, wet pavement in a horrible fashion to blend in with the crowd; elderly men who are unfit to be useful in the factories light the streetlamps as the sun begins to disappear behind the buildings, thus casting a golden glow on the hellish city. Street merchants pack away their goods onto their automobiles that chug out steam to make way for the street sellers of the night who offer very different types of goods. It’s may be a weekday, but it’s apparent that Proetus is ready to party any night of the week.

Eventually I make it to Clarence’s Traven which has one too many smashed windows and the paint on the doors, window frames and sign has faded and is half peeled away. With the money I’ve been losing to the house, they should have enough to completely redo the place, make it look fancy, but they wouldn’t. They would lose the clientele that they’ve required over the years. I step over the piles of the puke – a very classy decoration, might I add – and walk into the bar. I gaze at that said clientele, the sleezy scumbags bargaining over rare items or people that they shouldn’t be negotiating over. Most likely those sleezy scumbags are members of Piers’ gang or a mafia, it’s no secret that’s one of their favourite past-times. No one would say anything, the threat of being treated like a snitch is too big, not to mention everyone in this bar is here for the same reason; the promise of secrecy. The police are too stupid to think that rich criminals would spend any time in this run-down pub and they wouldn’t waste any time questioning the drunks can’t remember what they see or hear and everyone, who can remember, needs a fee to recollect whatever it is you’re looking for. Let me tell you, people are too cheap to cough up that amount of money. Personally, it’s definitely not ideal, not as clean as I would like, nor as organised, but at least I’m assured that no one will recognise me, and if they did, they would never tell.

I start the night with my usual routine by looking through the crowd to spot the dealer. Today, his face is young and refreshing, no one I had ever seen before. A small smirk appears on my lips – I know exactly how to play tonight. I avoid eye contact with anyone and instead gaze at the floor which has blood and beer stains with small pieces of glass stuck between the wooden boards. I raise my shoulders and duck out of the way of the roaring drunk man who really can’t handle his drink. I then sit down at the green, wobbly table at the back, glance up nervously at the dealer as I hand him a check with the amount of money I’m playing with. He raises his eyebrows in surprise and I smile sheepishly at him, scratching my head to add to the façade.

“Ain’t you a little young to be playing this game? It’s illegal to gamble when you’re twelve.”

I bite my tongue and force a smile, “I thought this place didn’t care for stuff like that. I have an ID, if that will help…” I trail off reaching for my pocket and handing it to him.

I watch his face carefully as he studies the card, reading every little detail about the age, height, weight and the address. He flips it around a few times, lifts it to the lamp like that would help and glances at me. He hands me the piece of plastic back and then gives me my chips, with a very suspicious expression. I put the card in my breast pocket and bite my lip to hide my grin. Works like a charm.

I begin to play with the chips, dropping them and restacking the same pile and betting away the rest. I don’t know the count yet, so I might as well play it safe until the dealer shuffles the deck again. I place down the minimal bet each round, losing some and gaining some over time, but overall keep my original count. It also helps with my clueless façade. The people around me come and go due to boredom, getting too drunk, or having to get home to their wife and children. I have to admit; the room does seem much quieter tonight. Funny, that always runs through my head after playing throughout the weekend. I order something non-alcoholic from the barmaid who turns around to face me with a forced smile and a sarcastic response. A little rude, considering she is paid to serve people, not to sit around and gossip about lord knows what.

While I wait, I scan the room, trying to find someone who may potentially be the voice in my head. I recognise a lot of the regulars. They’re already wobbling around, completely unable to stand up right and it’s not even their children’s bedtime yet. Some of the regulars at sat at the counter, talking quietly to each other or sitting alone. One man is conversing with barmaid who is red in the face and scowling as she does her job. I wonder what he said to her. I keep searching the room for suspicious faces so more, trying to spot someone who is keeping their eye on me, but no one stands out. They might not even be watching me, they might not have to be in the room.

I turn back to the table as the young dealer takes the discarded stack of cards and reshuffles them in parts his hand, only to stumble and drop them on the table. I sigh and rest my head in my hand as my free hand twiddles with my lucky poker chip. It hasn’t really brought me that much luck lately, but here’s to hoping. While I wait for the dealer to finish shuffling, an aching, unsettling feeling rests on the back of my neck. I can feel the presence behind me breathing into my ear; the reason why the dealer dropped the deck. His breath smells like booze and cigarettes, a _lovely_ combination.

“Get me that money, Triggs,” Piers’ harsh, raspy voice whispers. My spine becomes rigid, my breath is caught between heartbeats. “Or there _will_ be hell to pay.” He lets out a random and loud cackle before walking off.

My tongue rolls itself in my mouth and I crack my neck, popping nicely as I move it in unnatural ways. Here’s to hoping that the voice is not here tonight. The dealer finishes shuffling the cards with a little struggle, and considering none of them are in good condition, I’d say it is pretty good. Does he know any card shuffling parlour tricks? Perhaps, I wonder why he is even in this bar. Ah, not really. He’s young and has a pretty face but not my type. No one here is my type.

The barmaid places down my drink and I give her a poker chip as payment like I’m a big player at a top casino, and in response, she rolls her eyes at me as she walks away. I sip slowly on my drink for the next hour, keeping track of the count as it goes up, down or stays the same. This time I try relax my body and not think about Piers mounding debt and how if I don’t pay it, I will end up dead at some point in the foreseeable future – not that any would care. My mother is too busy living in that virtual reality of hers, my father wouldn’t know until he comes back although he wouldn’t shred any tears when he did and it’s like I have a lot of friends. Piers would probably corner me and then have my own friend kill me as both a kindness and an evil. Yes, not going to think about that and just focus on the cards. If I make double what I’ve brought, I’d be happy. I’ll give a little extra to Piers to make him extra happy and then celebrate by buying new hair dye to cover up the my white patch. Hey, might even buy another suit. I’d have broken out of my unlucky streak and that calls for a little celebration. If not… it’s time to find a new pub to play in. There’s bound to be much more like this across Proetus and hopefully at least one that Piers doesn’t have in his pocket. Yes, not thinking about that.

“The count is plus eleven, right?” Asks the familiar and unwelcomed voice. I sigh, letting my shoulders sag. He wasn’t wrong, but now I know that I will definitely have to find a new pub to gamble in.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing, Elijah. Gambling is bad, unhealthy and you owe a bad man a lot of money. It would be safer to –“

Thank you for the unwanted concern. If I wished to play it safe, I’d start a poker club at my school. This is way more interesting, the stakes are higher. I lean forward in my chair, biting on my poker chip as I think about what to bet. Plus eleven isn’t that high, but I could risk it and start betting a little more than the minimum. I take a few blue chips and drop them onto the table for the dealer to nicely stack before handing me a card. It’s just me and him right now, so it isn’t that hard to keep count. My first card is an ace of diamonds, the card meaning materialism. I let out one single breathy laugh at the irony and watch the dealer place a queen before him. The count is down to plus nine, not good, but not bad either. He grabs my next card, bending it slightly as he slides it carefully off the unseen deck and sets down a queen.

I stand up and cheer, “Fuck yes!” I clap but no one gives me much attention except the dealer who politely smiles and gives himself his next card, which is a ten of spades – how fitting given its meaning. I sit back down as the dealer hands me my winnings and picks up the cards. The count is plus seven. Getting lower and lower, which is bad, but I could win big and then call it quits before it’s too late. I nod my head, yes, good idea.

“How about a deal?” The voice blurts out. He’s nervous, could he possibly be afraid of me winning? “If you win one unit more of what you are gambling with, you’ll never hear me again.” Sounds like a strong deal. But what if I lose, would the price be worth it? “You’re a gambler, course the reward is worth the risk.”

What happens if I lose?

“If one unit less of what you started with by midnight, then you must meet with me and hear out what I have to say.”

Damn, both have their advantages. If I win then I never get to be bothered again and Piers would have his money, leaving me out of his debt. However, if I lose I would gain answers to a lot of questions. Obviously, the downside to both scenarios is that I don’t gain any money. Do I value knowledge or protection? Something doesn’t feel right in either case. If the reason for talking to me is important, then surely they would want me to win to prove myself worthy of whatever it is they want. Yet that could give me motive to lose on purpose so I wouldn’t have to deal with him. Although that does lead into the problem of that there would be no real benefit to losing, I wouldn’t gain knowledge or power or money. I’d lose it all. Maybe deliberately throwing the game is a test, a test to see if I would choose knowledge over ignorance. But then the bigger question is, do I take the risk of angering Piers and putting my own life in danger for some information that could be worthless to me or do I play it safe and keep Piers happy and never know that information?

The count is plus seven, and we are no where near finishing the deck. The cards are not favouring me at this second, but I’ll take that chance. I glance at the dealer’s wrist watch and discover that I’ve got an hour to go before the clock strikes twelve. On a school night such as this, I’d prefer to be returning home right about now and I know it’ll worry Gerald at the border that I’m not sticking to my schedule. I finally notice that the dealer is impatiently tapping on the table, waiting for me to place my bet. So I do, double the minimum bet which is 1,000 units tonight. Before me, he places down two ten cards and before himself a five and his face down card, bringing the count down to plus five. I gulp, the cards really aren’t in my favour this evening. I leave my cards as they are, two ten face cards are more than enough and drawing an ace is more than unlikely. The dealer reveals the face down card – a six – and draws another two cards leaving us tied. I lose, but that’s okay. Plus nine.

The game goes on like this for the next forty minutes, I lose some and I gain it back next round. I haven’t decided what I valued yet, it’s not exactly an easy question to answer. Part of me wants to leave it to fate, but the rest of me is torn on my answer and I always will be if I never answer it. Before I know it, I have five minutes before it’s midnight. I’d be lying if I said that not knowing why the voice chose me isn’t annoying me. It had been gnawing at my insides ever since I first encountered it. Part of me wondered if it was because I know what he is, an abnormal human like Jack. I knew Jack had friends like him, I knew that there were more wondering the streets of Proetus, undetected by the people around them, so the voice’s exitance isn’t much of a surprise.

The count is now plus nineteen. I have 5,000 units more than I started with, so I bet 6,000. The first card before me in the ace of clubs, the card of spirituality, and the count falls to plus eighteen. Not that I believe in such forces, but I hope that the spirits are on my side and will give me the answer I want. The dealer’s first card is the queen of hearts. She stands for compassion, which I pray that the desk has. Give me the answer I want. My next card is the card of apathy, the six red hearts look up to me and I look down on them. Finally the dealer places down his secret card. I tap the horrid table and am dealt one final card – the king of contentment.

I sit back in my chair, feeling it squeak underneath me. The dealer looks surprised at my face, my happy, smiling face. He takes my bet and I grab my remaining chips to get them converted at the bar. The bartender makes some comment about how lucky I am that Piers had to leave earlier. According to the bartender, there was an urgent matter for him to attend to across town. I don’t respond and pocket my fat wad of cash. Turning on my heel, I wave a careless goodbye at the him and leave, careful to not let any skin touch the wood. God knows who emptied their insides on it.

I wait on the poorly lit street, dithering away. My teeth knock against each other and I damn the weather to be so cold. I guess it is nearly October but that doesn’t give it the right to be so chilly at night. I chose knowledge over protection, I assumed that he would talk now before my arse freezes off. Getting impatient, I tap my feet on the floor, switching between my left and my right, my heels and toes. I roll my head around, my neck popping nicely, and my hands are stuffed inside my already full pockets.

There’s an echoing chuckle behind me, “That’s a funny dance,” says a familiar husky voice. I turn to face him, a little surprised at what I see. I was expecting a much more mature man with a weathered face and white hair, his clothes ragged and torn from working in mines or factories. In my mind, he would’ve been filthy and perhaps a chain smoker with a hoarse voice like that. But instead, I meet a very clean man who couldn’t be more than a few years older than me. His shoes are polished to shine, even in this dim lighting, and a long trench coat hides his clothes that I presume to be an expensive suit. Nothing looks too worn, in Acrisius he would blend into the crowd with ease, but here, he sticks out like a sore thumb. It makes me wonder why I didn’t spot him in the bar, though the chances are that he never was in a room with me.

“Who are you?” I ask the strange figure, keeping my distance and a strong, rigid stance. Father always told me to be cautious of those who don’t look like they belong in the room for they are never up to any good.

“Need you ask?” There’s a smile in his voice, I’m not sure if he is mocking me or something else. But he’s right, I didn’t need to ask. I can recognise that voice anywhere.

“What’s your name?” I ask instead. The man makes a soft noise of approval, not at all the response I wanted.

He closes the distance between us so that I have to look up slightly. “Christopher, but my friends call me Topher.” From what I can see of his face, his eyes seem kind, but I can’t shake the strong feeling of distrust.

“Alright Christopher.” This man knows everything about my life and I know nothing of his, why should I consider him a friend when he has the upper hand? “I know you’re not from Proetus. While some of the wealthier families could afford them, they prefer a much more industrial look. And you don’t sound like you’ve been taught to speak by a rat. So why are _you_ here?”

A grin spreads across his face, “I could ask you a similar question, why not gamble in Acrisius? Then you wouldn’t have to deal crossing the border and you wouldn’t have to worry about being mugged or catching diseases. I know you worry about them.”

Smart man. My kind of man. “Gambling is easier here when they don’t care about enforcing the law. They would never dare to be seen helping the police, who have been brought by the wealthy, and Piers would stick a pike in their skull if he found out. People would rather let vigilantes doll out justice and they are much more concerned about settling their own vendettas.” I didn’t want to mention that the police are too incompetent to do their job. “Acrisius has a very difference stance when it comes to the law, the people aren’t afraid to cooperate with the police. It’s safer for me to go through all of that trouble to fill my pockets a little more.”

Christopher has a proud smile on his face, “I knew I chose the right person.” That’s a strange thing to say, I hope he doesn’t plan on marrying me. He lets out a loud laugh, causing me to jump, “You’re a funny kid. No, I don’t plan on marrying you. I want you to join something.”

“Sorry, I’m n-not interested in a c-c-cult.” My teeth start to chatter on their own accord and my body shakes involuntarily.

He laughs again at me, “It’s not a cult.” That’s what a cult would say, I think to myself. “It’s not,” he repeats. I’m starting to dislike this telepathy trick, invading my privacy like that. “It’s a small group, you know one of the members. Mr Jack Eld, the pyro master. The group has four members total, and they hope to take down the government.”

It’s my turn to laugh. “You’re a funny m-man,” I repeat back to him, “Four people to t-take down the government and you want m-m-me to join th-them? That’s hilarious.” I also I don’t think Jack Eld is the type of man to even have a view on politics, his whole life would be different if the system isn’t the way it is. He cares a lot about his boss too, so being caught wouldn’t have the best interests for him and he will get caught.

Christopher sighs, “Yes, I know it’s ridiculous. But hear me out. One of their members, the fourth member went missing a month back. They’re all scratching their heads about it. They have a name but no idea who it belongs to nor how to find them. They need an outside perceptive, someone who has a completely different set of views on the government, runs in very different circles and is much more cunning than they are. You don’t have to help them take down society, just help them find that person.” He stares at his feet and his voice went quieter.

I scowl at the gentleman, not believing what I’m hearing. He wants me to take down my home city, or at the very least join a club that hate it. “Why should I?”

“Because that person is my friend,” he says. But he’s not mine, I think to myself. “If you find him, I’ll help you track down Samuel.”

My body goes rigid, finally ignoring the bitter cold air. How dare he promise that. He would never be able to find him. The police were practically useless, unable to unearth anything of use or to value. My father used the military but he could only use their resources so much without creating a massive bill for our defences. He turned to the secret services next. They got the furthest, we think. They claimed that he left the country with a fake identity after emptying his bank account, so they can’t do much about it other than alert other authorities, but we all know that Samuel is gone for good. Most likely dead and that wouldn’t help an investigation at all. Either way, it’s a pointless search.

 “Okay,” Christopher says, trying a different way to convince me. “Have this card,” He takes my wrist from the warmth of my pocket and places a card in it. Not letting go when I attempt to remove myself from his strong grasp, he pulls me closer, my heart pounding as he whispers, “If you decide to take up my offer, go to Jack and show him the card. If you decide not to bother, leave the card at the Goldilocks Gate with Gerald.”

He lets go of me and walks away before I can do or say anything else. I look at the card in my hand, trying to see what it is under the dim light of the gas lamps. It’s bigger than a playing card, but not larger than my hand. There also seems to be a picture on it, however it’s hard to make out any of it, so I pocket it for later and begin to head to the Goldilocks Gate.


	3. The Fool

Gerald chokes on his hot mug of something, spitting it on the front of his uniform. I don’t bother asking if is okay, he is avoiding my questions. “Sorry, I have no idea what you mean.”

I jab at the strange card that I had slammed on his desk. On it is a detailed painting of a man wearing a red and blue jester outfit. He was walking down a path with a carefree expression on his face, a stick with a bag rests on his shoulder and in his other hand, he holds mistletoe. “Liar, you do know what the card means, and you know what it means to you. The person who gave it to me mentioned your name and you looked me dead in the eye when you said that. Liars do that when they don’t want to be caught out.” Overcompensate their actions when they don’t want to get caught. No idea

He shrugs at me and plays with his tongue in his mouth with a disgusted expression. I think he burned it. “I have no idea why Topher gave you that card, he never said.”

A scowl creeps across my face. “I never mentioned him. Who is he?” My question makes Gerald sigh and look annoyed with himself for making a mistake.

“No idea, he approached me one evening and asked questions about you,” he says without looking at me.  
“Why he is interested in me?”  
“He never said, always avoided that question.”  
“What does he know about my brother? He promised to help me find him.”  
“He probably being kind and giving you some hope, I doubt that he knows more than the authorities and that isn’t a lot.”

That is true, no one knows anything. Or people aren’t willing to speak to the police, but so many people my brother knows are more than willing. Helping the police brought honour, disrupting the information brings dishonour on the family. If anyone was hiding information, it will raise more questions that Gerald is unable to answer. Or will refuse to answer.

I end up leaving him be and went home. I remember my trench coat this time, so the walk back isn’t as cold as it was the last few nights I’ve been out. The streets tonight are also a lot quieter than normal, but I’m not sure if that’s because I’ve forgotten what it’s like to gamble during the weekdays or because the police have enforced a small curfew on the youth in this part of the city. There have been rumours for a while that it might happen soon because youth and night crime are on the rise again, although I never found that an issue. I never interact with those who live in this neighbourhood, never saw a point and never will, and they don’t bother me because they either don’t see me in my all black or someone recognises me and knows who I’m related to. Harming me has a much more severe punishment than it would be harming most other passers-by.

As I get closer to the central part of Acrisius, muffled chanting can be heard in the distance. Another protest, nothing noteworthy. Although I do wonder if it’s a Luddite protest or the special snowflakes. Not like being peaceful would change much, no one listens, not the people can change the laws. I keep walking until I return home, focusing on nothing else except that card and why it was given to me. I’ll look it up when I’m settled in.

I return, finding my mother in her usual spot: passed out on the sofa before the TV, which, for a change, is still on and showing the News. I grab the remote to turn it off but pause when I realise what the news is talking about – the protest I ignored on the way. People stand outside of the Looking Glass headquarters, holding up signs and chanting catchy lines that rhyme (I’m guessing as the news anchors and reporters were talking over them). Peaceful Luddites. I never really cared for them, father won’t let me care for them, however it doesn’t stop me from being interested in this particular stand they appear to be taking. The police are standing around them, cutting off the main body of the crowd with wooden fences so they couldn’t leave. The camera switches to a helicopter, showing off the size of the crowd on both sides of the fence and showing the Looking Glass employees watching out of the window. There must easily be thousand people shouting and chanting. It’s a big enough number for the news to look into it, not enough for politicians or the company’s board of directors to care about.

“The protesters are there as result of the recent update to Cloud9 that was released two weeks ago. A previous update allowed users to eat and drink virtual foods, this update has the real-world effects of eating and drinking. It quenches thirst and feeds your hunger; the CEO has previously said that he wants users to truly be submerged into his internet, one way to help that is to stop users from exiting to go eat and drink.”

I huff “That’s because when the eating and drinking function increased death rates of starvation and dehydration.” I say to myself.

The reporter says before asking one of the protesters why he is there.

“My brother has woken up, eaten breakfast and then plugged himself until that little screen reads K.O.” says the man. “He did that the first few days and the only time me or my mother spoke him was at the breakfast table and when we had to carry him back to his bed. Now he wakes up and puts it on and stays in bed. Never get to see him, it’s taken my brother away from me. Full of life, he was, and now. He’s half dead and never around. Wasting his life away.”

I look at

mother sprawled out on the setti. That explains why she’s a little impatient when I wake her up in the evening to eat tea with her for the past two weeks. She was nice about it, even asked about my day at school and we’d talk a little about other things. Not much though, it was really awkward but better than eating by myself. It’s an unspoken rule that we don’t talk about my father or my brother because then she eats faster to disappear from this world sooner. I don’t talk about her usage on Cloud9 either. Not that I don’t want to upset her but because when’s using it, she doesn’t know that I go out twice a week to go gamble, usually at night where it’s much easier. However I’ve finished my six weeks of gambling on Friday and Saturday nights, so now it’s Wednesday nights and I skip school on Friday afternoons.

“No one is saying it, but the system is addictive. The more they keep adding, the more people stay inside of it, buying their lies. We all know at least one person who spends every waking moment with that machine on their head. We’re all watching someone waste their life away experiencing something that isn’t real.”

BOOM. Fire is seen right behind the man. People start screaming and running. The reporter ducks out of the way but doesn’t try to run away like the protesters. I don’t flinch, my eyes are glued to the screen. The protesters push past the reporter who tries to explains what’s going on. So much screaming. The camera tries to find where the explosive was thrown while the police help people get out of the way. The screen shows what’s going on from the helicopter, people are running away in the crowd, breaking the glass of the Looking Glass headquarters and the employees are fleeing from the windows.

BOOM.

Someone in the civilian crowd throws another bomb. There appears to be multiple of the, rather than one person. Everyone runs around like animals. Poor frightened animals. Screaming. So loud. Even the News anchors are panicked.

New people arrive on the scene in armoured trucks. Men run out of them in protective gears and rifles. I think they’re rifles. More screams.

“General Triggs has given to order to send the troops that were waiting on standby a few streets away.”

I turn the TV off, having enough now and throw the remote on the armchair in the corner. The situation will be dealt with and I’ll hear about what happened tomorrow at school. I’m not excited to be pestered all day about my father or the attack, like I’d know anything when he’s not here. I didn’t know that he was stationed close by this time. Not that he would ever tell us where he is going to be giving orders this time.

I stare at my mother, thankful that she had the headgear on and didn’t see the news. She would have been a little annoyed at the Luddite protesters for being against the system that’s helping her cope. If she saw it turn sour, she will be upset and might burst into tears and feel guilty. Knowing that father is the one who sent the troops in would disturb her, she won’t sleep. Despite that, she wouldn’t have shown her horror on her face and applaud him for his work, his involvement. I don’t care if the protesters die. Father says that people should be willing to go down for their cause otherwise they don’t support it enough. “You go down for your family and you go down for cause.  My men die for their cause, why shouldn’t these righteous twats die for theirs?” Before I cut the TV off, the camera was on one of the attackers, their mask clear as day. A black ski mask with ‘X’s over the eyes and mouth. The violent Luddites, the one I have a little more support for because they know how to get attention and not get caught. By day, a model citizen in a mundane job, by night a bomber for the L.P.B.M (The Liberated Peoples of the Broken Machine).

I take off mother’s headset, accidentally waking her up. Shit, now I get to deal with this. She starts babbling away about lord knows what, mentioning places and people I’ve never heard of before. She calls me Carlos and strokes my cheek. Her fingers are cool on my face, but I ignore them. I answer her of course, I had learned a few years ago that it is easier to not correct her. Otherwise she’ll grab at me and cry. I hate the crying, but the screaming is worse. She is harder to calm down when she’s having a breakdown because I didn’t agree with her and she wakes up the neighbour’s baby, making them be angry at us, or rather at me who has to deal with them. I have to find a way to make sure they don’t see my mother breaking down because then they’ll tell my father when he gets back and father knowing that is the last thing we want. He hates Cloud9, he doesn’t understand why people would want to use it and he had an answer for every argument. Some of it made sense and is backed by research, some of his arguments are just made up or from the Luddites who don’t what they’re talking about.

She freaks out on me when I bring her to the guest bedroom on this floor, trying to push past me and yells about she can’t possibly go in that room because it’s not hers. It’s his. Normally she forgets about that, or she ignores it. But this is normal now. If she’s not on Cloud9 then she’s in the dream haze where, for about an hour, you are completely disorientated from spending five or more hours in virtual reality as your brain and body try to work together again. I rarely get to see _my_ mother. I just get to see this stranger. I grab her arms and pull her out of the room and down the hall. Stairs in this state is hard for her, so I lean her against the wall for support, her arm is wrapped around mine as I drag her up the stairs. She is too heavy to take her up, I stop for a second to catch my breath every few steps before trying again, eventually making it to the top to take her to her bedroom which, lucky for me, is the door right next to me. I struggle a little with opening it and holding my hazy mother up, however I am relieved to let her flop on her bed. I don’t bother tucking her in tonight, I already had to take her upstairs and that’s exhausting in itself.

I then stumble into my own bedroom and take off my tie as I flop onto the bed.

***

Martha gazes at the card on the lunch table with a confused expression in her face. “So he just gave it to you?”  
“Yes.”  
“Without telling you what it means?”  
“Yes.”  
“To show Jack to let him know something secretive?”  
“Yes.”  
“And if you find this missing person, he promised to help you find your missing brother.”  
“That’s about right.”

Martha sits back and sighs. “Darling, how the hell do you always attract the attention of sketchy people?” She rubs her temples and looks at her watch, presumable to find answers.

I, on the other hand, take my chance now to eat my food in peace while she is distracted and everyone else isn’t bothering me. All day they had been asking about who the bombers were, as if I would know their identity. But as General Triggs’ son, I should. They were also pestering me about what medals father he’d get for it. “He wouldn’t get anything,” I told them, “You saw the news, he was the man that gave the orders, not one of the people risking their lives in a bombing to stop the bombers.” They didn’t listen and proceeded to tell me the details I had missed because I don’t watch the morning news. I like being able to stomach my food in the morning, thank you very much. I’m also a fan of not being depressed at the beginning of the day. Anyway, according to the news, they hadn’t managed to catch any of the bombers on sight, but someone had turned themselves in and was naming names.

One-hundred-and-thirty-six of the peaceful protesters died and two-hundred-and-eighty-four injured, sixteen policemen are deceased and fifty-five wounded, nineteen civilians had been killed and sixty-three injured, none of the military dead but eight were injured and none of the Looking Glass employees were killed nor wounded. The L.P.B.M. were not hurt, killed nor captured. I laughed when I first heard that, not one of the employees had gone six feet under. Keiron, the boy who told me appeared to be scared. He was even more confused when I had pointed out that the attackers intended target had survived their ambush but everyone else suffered, including those who wanted the same thing. I found some beautiful irony in it. The people who have all the power will be hated by the most people and yet will never be wounded. They’ll always make sure someone else is killed in their place.

I shocked myself when I said that. For a moment I sounded like one of those anti-government types and I’m not having that.

“I found out what it means!” Martha shouts.

I jump out of my skin, “Jesus fucking Christ Martha.”

“It’s a tarot card,” she ignores me, “They’re fortune cards and _The Fool_ is the first of the Major Arcana, whatever that is and there’s twenty-two of the Major Arcana.” At the top of the card is a naught and _The Fool_ is scrawled at the bottom of the card, presumably because he has bare feet and is about to step off a cliff to his death and take the dog following down with him.

This is what it says about this card,” Martha gives a small cough to clear her throat.

‘ _The Fool is at the start of his journey, and he is symbolised by his bag on his stick. The stick is a wand and the bag is his chalice, his Holy Grail, but he doesn’t know this, hence why he is a fool. He joyously steps off the cliff, another reason for why he is the fool and his bare legs and feet represent innocence.’_

Martha bursts out laughing, “I think it means that you’re innocent.”

“Just keep reading.”

_‘When you enter your journey, you bring all of your potential with you as the bag and the stick. Though you may not know where you are going, you do have a partner to show you the way, the greyhound beside the Fool, who may actually be a person, a soulmate or a lover, someone who will make you whole.”_

Now it’s my turn to laugh. I don’t need someone to make me whole, I’m perfectly fine the way I am.

_You have the seeds of mistletoe as you leap into the Divine World of experience, each of those seeds will bring you joy and new ideas and new adventures. This card signifies a new journey to be enjoyed, a new beginning that encourages confidence and courage in this new phase of life, or perhaps it suggests taking a new risk. Because the Fool represents the jester and the troubadour, he can both praise and mock with wit, be fun with serious content so this card is telling you to be serious and critical when necessary but to enjoy it too.’_

I thought about the meaning in silence. My classmates will laugh if they knew I took into consideration of card meanings. I’m Elijah No-Bullshit Triggs. The amount of times people tried to persuade me into believing outlandish things, only for me to cut it up with facts. One girl tried to tell me that one boy liked me, someone she assumed I had a crush on, just so I would go up to him and humiliate myself. I didn’t do that and made her cry instead by telling her that no matter how much make-up she plasters on her face, she is still going to look like an ugly pig. All of her girlfriends made me their target until I shut them all down one by one. Boys tried to intimidate Martha once, and it was working, but they weren’t laughing when I turned around and said, “If her family found out what you are saying to and about a member of the royal family, the eldest daughter of the heir to the throne, then they will personally make sure that you’re all castrated to make sure your gene of stupidity and tiny dicks end with you. Trust me, no girls want to be with a man who has no balls.” No one talks down to Martha anymore, yet she still scowled me.

I’ve never used carrot cards or whatever they’re called before but as this card is a gift, I felt rude to not consider the meaning. It could be important later on. Right now it is trying to help me make my choice. The journey would be finding the missing person because that will have clues and make a path to where the person is. It would be risky, especially as I’d be aiding an anti-government group who may want my help with other things like protests. If father found out I was doing such a thing, I’d be dead for sure. I have no idea about the innocence part because I have broken the law plenty times before, I’m doubtful that it means sexual innocence, maybe it could mean worse crimes other than illegally crossing a boarder and underage gambling. It could mean naivety. What about that dog? I’d have someone guiding the way. I stare at the card and get the feeling that that someone may be Christopher.

I look up at Martha and smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the armed police burst through the door, yelling and shouting. Helmets, body armours and guns. A panic vibe fills the air which isn’t helped with the early morning protest very fresh in our minds.

Is there a bomb?

A school shooter?

A terrorist from last hiding amongst us?

I stand up, as does Martha, some students sit back down.

“Diamond Johnson?” The leader asks loudly.

The idea of them being the terrorists crosses my mind for a second as we all turn to face the girl at the table on the far-right corner of the lunch hall. We all know who Diamond is, her father plays a big role in the government, although I never bothered to remember which role that was. I think he might be important because he is black in a very white government. She is infamous for her little school campaigns, she always finds something new to convince the school to stand against or for, even if her success rate is 50/50. Her latest campaign was for the end of transgender stereotypes – she asked me if I could say something on the matter, being one of the few openly trans students at this school and the only one who is taking hormone replacement therapy. I told her to piss off. And then told her that trans students are just like anyone else. She is a nice girl, if a _tad_ infuriating with her social justice warrior attitude. She is always smiling, except right now when all eyes on her. Her chubby dark face had fallen, her brown eyes are wide with horror. The friends around her sit down and lean away from her, letting her be the soul person at that table standing, as if being near her will make the police interested in them too. They may have been worried about the police thinking they are going to get in their way. No one gets in the way of police business, the honour they lose is too great.

“Y-yessir?” Her voice wavers and cracks, an unusual change from the confidence she often radiates. No one wants to be police business. She winces, I smirk.

“Is this you?” Asks the leader. Someone behind him fiddles with his watch, the lunch hall monitors change to one image of a dark-skinned girl who’s a little on the chubby side at the protest. She’s holding a sign that has “CLOUD9 IS KILLING US” written on it in red. Her mouth is wide open, probably chanting some silly line, there’s a scowl across her face, but it’s obvious that it’s her.

We all look back at her.

“Y-yessir. But there’s nothing wrong with that.” She’s trembling, perhaps worried about what her father would have to say when they arrest her.

“And is this you?”

The image changes to someone with a short stout build throwing something. The girl in the image has Diamond’s signature plaits moving around in the air as she launches the object through the sky. She wears a black trench coat and a stripy scarf that’s blowing in the window. The people around her are running away, screaming.  The object leaving her fingertips is small but something I’ve seen before on in movies. Father showed me one too, dead of course. He didn’t trust me to not blow the house up.

“N-no!” she stutters. “That’s not me, I would never do such a thing! I’m not a violent person!” I believe her, it can’t be her. No one has ever seen Diamond throw a punch, let alone throw a bomb. All of her ‘battles’ are verbal, all of her campaigns are raising money, strikes, marches, speeches, hunger strikes, sit outs etc. I’ve walked passed them and ignored them enough at this point that I know that she hasn’t done anything violent – I would have been more intrigued in her projects otherwise. However the image shows her face, in her clothes, throwing that bomb.

“But you are wearing that scarf right now. And that coat is in the first image.”

“Y-yes…”

“Well then, you’re coming with us.” Two of his men march over to her, grabbing her arms so she can’t struggle – not that she would – and lead her out of the lunch hall. We watch and gawp, my fellow classmates have no idea what to make of it. Diamond Johnson is a criminal. That’s the last thing they expected.

Meanwhile, I grab the card off the table and follow after, but Martha stops me. “What are you doing?” She asks because no one gets in the way of police business. Not even mild criminals like me.

“Something interesting is finally happening in this hell hole, like fuck am I going to miss it.” I shake her off my arm and run after the armed police, leaving her stunned. Some of the other students follow me out, interested too. Nothing ever happens to Ridgewood Academy, especially not police business.

Students in the corridor move out of the way of the police, staring in horror as they take Diamond Johnson away. I’m knocked out of the way by another team of armed police from behind. They’re arresting a student who is a few years younger than me, but he’s the school nerd, and bullies prime target. He is always beaten to a pulp, never learning that some people don’t appreciate sarcasm. I really doubt that the armed police would arrest someone for their sarcasm, however I doubt that the boy was involved in anything violent. He can’t even struggle against his bullies, he gives up at the first second. By the confusion on everyone’s faces, no one believes that these two people are being arrested, yet they have the evidence. Questionable evidence. Evidence that can be faked if someone high up paid the right price. There’s a twisty feeling in my stomach, as if my organs are wiggling around like worms. Something isn’t right.

***

The school raids have been happening for the last few days. Students being taken out of their lessons was a daily thing, it became a strange normality that bores me now. I don’t stop working when the police come barging in and demanding that someone or another comes with them. The teachers don’t protest, you’d think that they prefer to protect their students rather than hand them over. The most exciting thing was that one girl tried to run. She succeeded, managed to use some of the school’s lesser known corridors, even the ones that students aren’t allowed in. She convinced some of her friends to help get in the way and cause diverges. Then she got onto the school grounds where there were whole teams of men waiting to greet her.

Everyone is talking about it. All of the students anyway, I have no idea if the adults are. Mother doesn’t work, I don’t think she’s left the house in a while. She doesn’t need to, everything can be ordered and she’s not allowed to have friends, not since _the incident._ Plus, even if the internet or Cloud9 were talking about it, I rarely have the chance to speak to her.

The teachers doesn’t answer anyone’s questions, I’m under the impression that the headmaster has ordered them not to. They don’t even seem that bothered when students are arrested before their eyes. But that’s because everyone loves the police and the military.

The news barely covered the raids. Yes, _raids._ They come in, uninvited (or maybe the headmaster invited them in and we don’t know) and take whoever they want. The news briefly mentions that the police “know who these dangerous individuals are, and they are bringing them to justice.”

I could easily go on forums to have a look. I have a laptop, that’s all I need. (I’m not allowed to get the implant that makes the Looking Glass Headset work.) But I don’t trust it. People could be lying, there’s a lot of conspiracy nutters out there and the majority of them have far fetched ideas that are based on one coincidence. _One._ That’s not enough to base one huge, earth shattering theory on.

I’m then left with listening to my classmates. I suppose that it’s lucky that I go to school with the wealthiest and powerful children in Acrisius.

I thought that the students whose parents are currently in power would be the most help, however the majority of them were saying that they shouldn’t have been protesting in the first place because now they’re all in trouble. I wouldn’t have suspected less from the children of right-wing politicians to be that supportive of their fathers. Some of the other right-wing orientated students, like myself, disagreed with our fellow peers with the argument that it didn’t make sense why they were taking students like Diamond Johnson, Roy Connors and Daisy Gennari who are all known for being teacher’s pets or being bullied. They wouldn’t bomb anyone or anything, not even set one off for fun in the back garden or empty field. We were called liberal snowflakes. I stopped telling them my theories after the second time. They mainly praised the police for taking action, but wouldn’t say much else, especially why they had been taken, so I decided to talk to someone else.

The liberals and the left wings had the exact opposite view on the situation and were more able to give me details rather than spewing about how proud they are of their father for doing the right thing. These people agreed with their parents and were as pissed about the problem as I imagined them to be. They were confused about how they managed to obtain pictures of peaceful people taking part in acts of violence. While everyone they had taken was involved in the protest, there were images of them throwing a bomb or standing next to the attackers, which have denied by the people in the photo despite it being a very clear image of them. What bothered these social justice warriors was that the bombers were obviously the L.P.B.M. I remembered, after being told that, that I saw their black masks with ‘X’s over their eyes and mouth, but the pictures shown didn’t have people with masks in them, or even the students putting them on. One boy ran to a room without any monitors when they came for him. A friend had tipped them off that they were asking for him, so he ran to one of the exam rooms. The police couldn’t show him the picture of him and he argued against them, saying how all of those pictures had been faked because the meet-up had been planned a few days before the attack and those who were leading it made sure no one had a weapon before they started. He was arrested for avoiding arrest.

This one stuck with me. Fake images would make sense and it’s not the first time that images had been tampered. Propaganda. To set one group of people against the other with lies and half-truths. Throughout history propaganda has been used. Nazi’s used it to make people hate the Jews, so he could send them to the camps; the Soviet Union used propaganda to make sure its people remained communist and America used propaganda to make everyone fear and hate the communists. The government needed to show that it is doing something against the terrorist attack by finding the ‘terrorists’ to help keep an air of peace. “The government likes making both of the cities think their world is at peace,” father says, “Otherwise my men can’t keep their families safe.” I didn’t understand that, but I do now. Right now, chaos is among us, none of us students know who to trust. If we are shown that the culprits are taken away, we believe that we are safe, we’ll calm down. There’s going to be another attack.

_RIIINNGGGG!_

I jump out of my skin. Everyone packs away their thing; I didn’t get any of my equipment out so I grab my bag and leave the classroom as fast as I can. I have no idea what class that is, I’m always daydreaming through it. I don’t know who my classmates are, I don’t know the name of the teacher, let alone what they look like. I know Martha took it last term and she’s been doing all of my tests for me.

I stride through the school corridors, ducking and dodging through the horde of students leaving their classrooms for lunch. They’re like ants. If ants were colourful and were allowed to wear their own clothes. Well the upperclassmen can, the lowerclassman have a uniform but they’re in another wing. The corridor is crammed and smells like a mix of B.O. and way too much deordourant and perfume. It’s a hazardous place for those with asthma. I ignore the students who smile and wave at me as I pass, the ‘friends’ I made over the last few days by talking politics with. I regret that, now people who aren’t my friends think I like them.

_Mental note to self: go back to being bitter towards them._

Their smiles falter under my cool gaze, quickly learning that I don’t have the time to talk; I’ve got a Gate to go to. Course I would be faster if people could fucking get of the way, not all of us have the time to dawdle about in the corridor to put away P.E. kits and gossip about boring stuff like New Atlantis shit. I bounce behind this couple before me, one was the girl who got engaged the other day, they ample about the corridor as if they had all the time in the world together. Which they do. As they’re engaged at eighteen. And still in school. I try to cut around them, but the walls are lined with lockers and students leaning against them trying too hard to be cool. Pushing through them was impossible, they are arm in arm. So I resort to something a little less painful for me and for them.

“Could you fuckers go ANY SLOWER? I’ve got places to be late to, people to not talk to.” I shout at the couple, causing multiple students to stare at me.

The pair give each other the same disgusted expression but they still move out of my way at long last so I can dash through the corridor.

“Elijah Triggs!” Shouts an angry voice. A teacher, most likely, so I keep running.

I don’t want to get caught now, I’ve got a place to be.

Someone, probably the teacher, grabs the back of my collar, choking me. I make an ugly noise as my air ways are being squashed by my own collar. They let go so I can breathe. A teacher tried to kill me, I have to admire their balls, no one ever try that. They respect my father too much. Or fear him. Both are pausible.

“Elijah,” Martha says sternly. I turn to face her, rubbing my neck as if I have magical hands. “You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?” Her hair has fallen out of her messy bun, but her pink curls still look lovely.

“I don’t forget anything.” Except the number I’m on when counting. Did I forget her birthday? No, her birthday is on the other side of Christmas. Did I forget some anniversary? No, she stopped those last year when I told her that I would never remember them all because it felt like an anniversary every day. She took it as a compliment even though it wasn’t.

“Then why are you running off?”

I don’t respond.

“How rude,” she crosses her arms and raises her brow so I know that she isn’t made at me. “You forgot a meal with the royal family.”


	4. Ten of Spades

Everyone has their own place of haven somewhere. Might be a book or even an abandoned house. Back in the old days, my grandfather told me about a certain spot in the woods that he enjoyed when he was a boy. I never feel better when I’m counting cards in a sketchy pub somewhere in Proetus. For Martha it’s always been shopping. My mother enjoys wasting her time using Cloud9 (she still hasn’t said anything about the protests, so I’m assume it didn’t change much.)

There’s a reason why these we have get-away hobbies, the places of hell that make us retreat to our safe places. My grandfather used the woods to get away from my great-grandmother’s nagging. He said “It didn’t work because she could shout for England. I could hear her, you know, on my tree stump by the river a mile away from our little house.” For people my age, it’s usually the stress of school that gets us down. But for Martha, it was going to her parents’ manor for the weekend.

Martha’s family live too far away from Ridgewood Academy, so she and her younger brother Johnathon, stay in separate apartments that are much closer. They live separately because they would kill each other, and I wouldn’t put it past Johnathon to kill his older sister, even by accident. The siblings spend their weekends with in their family manor and this time they’re having a family meal together, which is why I’m going to make sure her parents keep in line (they hate causing a scene in front guests, a common rich person thing).

I get out of the car, not bothering to wait for someone else to open it for me and Martha follows. My legs are still half asleep, but it feels great to stretch them out, like scratching an itch on you back. The wet gravel crunches under my feet as I walk to the oak that’s open for us and I take in a deep breath, smelling the petrichor in the air. I can’t decide whether or not I like it, the smell of dust after rain. It reminds me of germs and diseases and how close I came to catch an illness. Illnesses are never on my agenda, I can’t go out and gamble them because I’m more likely to fall to an even deadlier disease in Proetus with a weaker immune system.

The mansion is stunning, honestly. A large garden that stretches for acres around her home in a bouquet of colours. Stunning reds, gorgeous oranges, and bright yellows are a starch contrast against the cloudy sky. Martha’s mother, Princess Elizabeth Val Aalsburg, always hated using chemicals to make her garden grow and remain green unlike her neighbours and most of the city.

I’ve always loved visiting it during the autumn as a child. How things have changed. I used to be amazed at the glamour and the fairy tale feeling it had. It seemed so magical as a child. Now it feels dead. The once mystical gargoyles look drab and broken with their missing heads and worn away faces. The cracked stones, thin windows. It’s a worn house but not by its owners. It’s no one’s home, just a place to live in. You can’t redecorate because of some bullshit rules about taking away the history.

“It always feels like it’s someone else’s home,” Martha complained to me once. “Or a dolls house. I already feel like a political toy for my family.”

The staff gossip and talk as they do their tasks, glaring at me as I take everything in. I once heard them say that I act as if I own the place. I do, in a way. When you’re Martha’s best friend, she shares everything she owns with you and one day, she’ll own this house. There’s also the fact that I a few years back I used to visit the manor and stay over for the weekend while my father was away. They wouldn’t recognise me now. Too much has changed.

The security guards, on the other hand, are silent, I’ve never heard them speak to someone who isn’t a walkie talkie. When Martha and I were young, we joked a lot about that.

“If they don’t talk without the walkie talkie, they’ll be electrocuted by it as revenge,” Martha said when we were children. I giggled at her. I never said much as a child, she was under the impression I couldn’t talk so she did it for the both of us.

I let Martha lead the way up the death steps. The security guard from the car took her hand and helps her up so she doesn’t slip on the shiny, slippery brick and break her neck. He ignores me, even though I’m wearing dress shoes and not boots like him or Martha, but I pay no notice. It _is_ his job to care about her more than me.

The doors shut behind us, closing off the bleak natural sunlight. The two arches to the north and south wings of the manor are big enough to fit at least three Henry VIIIs. Music plays in the background, quiet classical music to help keep the servants noise levels low and the children’s. Her mother can’t stand too much noise, believes that the only people to hear are people who don’t bore her to death. And that’s not a lot of people. Martha’s footsteps dull when she walks on the blood red carpet that’s flattened due to its age, but still immaculately clean. Dutchess Val Aalsburg must be pleased but it smells like dust. It always smells of dust and old people. Martha says, “It doesn’t matter how much the cleaners dust the place, we’re still going to keep breathing in the skin of our ancestors.” Her mother sent her to her room for suggesting that her manor isn’t clean, so I convinced the cook to put my supper that day in a tub to share with Martha.

It feels so familiar and the same. Reminds me of a time before my brother disappeared and we were happy running around halls that are painted blood red and the wooden are gold with paintings that date back centuries hanging from them. It also feels very dark and dull, as if smiling is illegal.

There’s only two technological changes to the hall way from what I remember, and that’s the chair lifts on the two staircases that follow the walls around to the interior balcony for Martha’s older brother, Henry Jr. “He only needs one in the hall, but mother likes the symmetry,” Martha once explained to me. At the top of the stairs is a family portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Martha’s older brother, Martha herself and Martha’s four younger brothers. While it’s beautifully painted, everyone looks dead behind the eyes. Martha hates it because the painter coloured her hair blonde rather than pink. She blames her father for it.

There’s a woman at the top watching us with an arched eyebrow. Her complexion is fair, her cheeks are rosy to give her a youthful look. The crows’ feet around her eyes give her age away, though I daren’t tell her that. Her lips are thin and pursed, a side affected from forever looking bored and unimpressed.

“Mother,” Martha says, standing up straight. I pull my hands out of my pockets and hold them behind my back instead. The Duchess has trained us since we were five to do this, my father was more than happy to make sure I kept it up at home.

“Martha,” she gives her daughter a dead smile. Her steal blue eyes fall on me, “Elijah,” I don’t get a smile with my greeting.

Last year Martha said to me. “Mother believes that the reason why I’m asking about arranging a marriage meeting with some boy at school is because I have my eyes set on you and you can’t produce an heir.”

The  let’s us know that supper will be served in half an hour and that we better not be a second late. We nod and head up the stairs to Martha’s room.

The corridors are long, and all look the same. The only way to tell the difference between each corridor is if you remember where each painting is and can tell the difference between the armours. I, however, am never at the manor often enough to memorise the differences, which is why I’m grateful that Martha does. The only thing I can tell you is what the inside of Martha’s room is gothic, bleak and filled with floral patterns and carvings in the wood. Even her door has roses carved into it.

Martha shuts the door behind her. “Bitter, that’s what she is.”

I stare at her, confused about the first half of the conversation I missed.

“Bitter about having you over for tea. She should be happy that her daughter has come home from school to see her at the weekend, but no.” Martha jumps on her king size bed and falls back. She sighs. “All she cares about whether or not I can bring an heir because Harry certainly can’t. However, it’s not like I’ve got five younger brothers or anything.”

I flop pink, over stuffed armchair, one of the few things that’s Martha’s touch in this room. It feels weird with my shoes still on, but then it isn’t really a place where you can walk around in your socks. “Maybe she’s bitter because of the fighting?” I suggest.

It doesn’t help, she just ignores me and huffs. “Oh darling, I wish we were young again and none of this was happening. Now we’re practically eighteen and suddenly we have all of these,” she waves her hands in the air, “ _Things_ to worry about, like marriage and babies and scandal.”

I don’t have any of those things to worry about. My father is worrying about it for me. If things go according to his plan, when I come out of university with a master’s degree in maths, I’ll be at work and my father will be arranging my wedding. All I have to do is show up.

We laugh and joke around in her room for a ten more minutes before heading all the way back down into the dining room.

It’s a grand room, but dark blue and filled with paintings of men staring at me like I’m an intruder. I _am_ an intruder, but that’s besides the point. I’ve been visiting Martha since I was child, so you would think that they’re used to be my presence in their house. The dark table is set for six, china plates at the head of the table and four plates placing opposite each other in the middle. An array of shiny, silver cutlery lay either side of the plates. I never learned what fork and knife was for which food, but the Val Aalsburgs never complain about my ignorance, they ignore it.

Martha grabs my shoulders pushes me backwards to a chair. Alarmed, my hands wrap around her elbows for support until she stops.

“What was that for?” I scowl at her. I don’t appreciate someone touching without permission. It feels wrong and they can never get the heat and pressure perfectly symmetrical on both sides of my body. And I can catch their germs.

She shrugs me off, “I don’t want to sit next to mother.”

I scratch my head and don’t say anything. We both stand as we wait for the rest to come.

“…If I poison Martha, I get to become King.” Says a young voice.

“And that’s why no one is ever going to eat your food John. You keep threatening poisoning us all,” responds a much deeper voice.

Martha and I turn around to face the door. Two boys walk in. Well, one boy walks in, the man wheels in on his electric chair. The one in the chair is Henry Jr, Martha’s older, dying brother. He has some sort of disease that’s slowly shutting down his nervous system, so he can’t use his arms or legs. Well, he _shouldn’t_ be able to use his arms but after a few years of medical magic and some cybernetics, he can use his arms. They couldn’t do the same for the legs, not enough working nerves. He’s face shows no sign of death, although that is a decade away, but instead his face shows youth and happiness. His hair is long, dark and straight, quite unlike his sexuality and the opposite of Martha’s blonde curls. Harry, as he prefers, is also growing a beard that makes him look like a white Jesus.

“Hello _Elijah,_ ” he smiles.

Why must all people who knew my old name put such a big emphasis on my name? It’s like they’re asking me if it’s okay to call me that name despite it being one of the biggest news events two years ago when I came out to the world and started hormones blockers for a year before I used testosterone, I even have no chest anymore. It’s so easy to get my mother to sign for things when she’s in a dream haze.

“Why do you look like a girl?”

“Fuck off Johnathon.” I gasp. Martha never swears. “Stand behind your chair and shut up.”

Maids walk in with a slight spring in their step to set the starters at the table, reminding me that meals with the Val Aalsburg are always three course, even if you can’t eat it all. The Duchess waltzes in to stand behind her seat. No one bows or curtseys. She hates it when people do that, finds it a waste of time. All five of us wait and stand in awkward silence as we wait. I stare absently at the painting behind Harry, not really paying attention.

I jump when the Duke walks in. “Stop standing around waiting for me!” He says. His voice is cheery and bright, although I don’t know how.

I sit down in my seat, taking the soup spoon and dig in. The Duke is where Martha’s broader build comes from because her mother is thin as a stick. He’s also where the two brothers get their dark hair and Johnathon’s stanned skin. His cheeks are rosy red, and he has a button nose and is fat from over-indulgence.

We all eat the soup in an awkward silence. The Duke tries to be polite and ask all us about our school work like most adults do because they have no idea what to talk about with teenagers. Martha and Johnathon don’t say much to each other, trying not to bicker in front of their parents. Or rather their stern mother and I try to pretend that I’m not there until the main course arrives.

The maids serve us a full roast dinner, with beef and potatoes. The gravy is thick and there are empty vegetables. It smells beautiful and my stomach wails like a whale, so I dig right in, ignoring the looks I receive from the other family members about using the wrong fork or knife. Martha copies me, mainly to piss off her parents.

“Sir,” I say, “There’s been a lot of fuss over the bombings outside of the Looking Glass headquarters, what do think about it?” I cut into the beef and take a bit. Perfectly cooked, not too dry.

The Duke raises a brow, somewhat surprised. “Oh that? That’s just a little squabbling. Nothing to worry.” He continues to eat his meal while Martha puts her knife and fork down and rests her elbows on the table. I notice her mother scowling from the corner of my eye.

“Nothing to worry about, father you _are_ aware aren’t you about the arrests at my school.” I gasp slightly, shocked that she would say that. I was thinking about asking how they were handling the raids, but this just jumps right in things and that’s why I love her and her bluntness.

“That’s because dear people must be brought to justice when they do things wrong.” He talks to her like a child, I want to say something, but this is too interesting, seeing the dynamic between the heirs to the throne. Technically, Henry Jr is heir, however he’ll be dead by the time the crown reaches his head and he can’t have children so that makes Martha next.

“What did they do wrong? They were protesting peacefully.”

“Were you there?” She shakes her head, “Well then, how do you know that your friends aren’t bombers?”

“They aren’t taking in witnesses into account. The news is ignoring that the L.P.B.M. completely.”

“Do you like an unknown enemy?” He snaps.

The Duchess sighs, taking a sip of water, “Martha stop pestering your father about politics. It’s not very ladylike.”

I scowl. I hate the phrase _not very ladylike._ Who cares about what a girl can or can’t do?

“Sir, what do you know who has ordered the arrests and if it’s just our school?”

“To be honest, I don’t know much about them. The government are sorting that out, I have my hands full of external affairs. No one talks to me about terrorist attacks.”

The conversation falls flat. Martha’s younger brother tries to talk about cooking and everyone shows a mild interest but that’s as far as it gets before Harry brings up the election next year and the running candidates. I forgot about that, I’ll be old enough to vote then and I know nothing about the parties’ policies and that they’ll bring to the table. Our current leader Vincent Bernal, stands for the Tory party, a right-wing party who makes sure that Acrisius remains prosperous and united. Well, I guess that it tries to keep the whole of the what’s left of the Old British Isles together.

Harry mentions one of the candidates and points out that his has a major following that could put the current party out parliament.

“Yes, but he’s black, he is probably the one who organised the latest terrorist attack.”

I nearly choke on my food.

“Darling, I don’t think your black male lover, will appreciate it if you say that about his race.” I freeze with my fork raised in the air with gravy dripping from it and onto the table cloth. There’s a cold smile on the Duchess’s face, one that I’ve seen Martha use a thousand times when she’s calling people out on their lies and behaviour. It screams ‘give me an answer, I dare you,’ making tension sit thick in the air.

The Duke glares at his wife. He stands up, chair scraping across the floor. It echoes in this tension, everyone is afraid to talk, too scared to rattle the cage anymore than we have. He leaves without another word, the maids rush to his plates and start putting it into a food box to reheat for him later. The door slams shut and we all jump.

Not knowing what else to say, I turn slightly to the Duchess, “Thank you inviting me over, the food is exquisite.”

***

“There’s been another protest,” yells someone, running into the lunch hall and interrupting Martha ranting again about her parents’ behaviour when I came for dinner. We both turn to face the person who is fumbling with a remote pointed at the monitors.

He manages to switch the channel over to the news. On screen is the outside of a factory where there are people throwing stones at the windows. They crack, and they shatter. The camera moves out, revealing more factories and more people rioting around them.

The subtitles underneath read: _the textile factories in the northern colonies are revolting because the factory owner has said that they won’t be able to go home for Christmas didn’t give a reason. So the people retaliating by breaking the windows and machinery so that the factories are unable to work, nor will they be up to code so the workers have no choice but to go home, however they might not have a job to go back to._

The _colonies._ That explains the orange and red trees surrounding the factories. Although I don’t understand why the new is showing this, it doesn’t directly affect us. They’re miles away from the city, all over the country in fact. They’re filled with factories and farms, there’s even office colonies though we call them cities but there’s not much difference. A large amount of people work and live there, all food and housing provided so they can send the money home to their families for a certain amount of time, perhaps six months to a year. Fresh out of school employees go to the office cities to gain experience before trying to find work in Acrisius. A huge part of our industry is outside of the city, it works too. Small groups of people doing similar jobs with the same goal. There’s just nothing to do. There’s no point in putting shops there because no one has money as they have everything that they need. Now they’re rioting about not going home. I suppose they didn’t read the fine print.

Armoured trucks roll onto the scene, similar to the attack last week, and like last week, soldiers run out of the back like ants. All of them armed. They do a strange march as they spread out through the factories, as if the weight of the world is on their soldiers. Father says that the weight of the world is on his men’s shoulders when there’s cameras on them.

“They have to make the right move otherwise they are judged forever, by their friends and neighbours, by themselves and by God.” His words echo in my head. We’re not religious, he pretends to be.

It’s hard to look away from the soldiers. I want to know what they plan to do. Arrest them? They’re not the police this time. No police would be that far away. Wherever _that_ is. They stop, and they aim and…

I hold my breath. Martha gasps, she’s not the only one.

I think someone screamed, but I’m not sure if I imagined that.

Some people look away. I can’t stop staring at it.

Teachers have the monitors on mute, I’m glad.

I don’t like hearing people scream.

***

I run through the front entrance and escape through the gate before the teachers on duty get there to stop me. I’ve got places to be, people to speak to, a card to hand over.

I get the idea behind it now, almost. Why he gave me _The Fool_. Christopher wants me to choose the journey I take. The bystander or the adventurer. He’s asking if I like a risk.

I don’t.

I like to play it safe and stay out of trouble. That’s why I gamble in Proetus not Acrisius. The punishment isn’t as a bad. Anyone would choose a “banned for life” from a pub than arrested and have their father told that his child is a criminal.

I hop on a bus because it’s daytime and they’re on. I daren’t sit down. I don’t even hold onto something. I trust my balance to keep me up. I pay no attention to the people who are also on the bus because they’re old and aren’t much of a threat, but the bus does smell like farts. Probably the elderly. I gaze through the window, impatiently tapping my foot and playing with my lucky chip in my pocket. The bus jolts to a stop. I grab onto a pole to stop myself from falling over entirely as an old biddy walks past smiling. I wipe my hand on my suit trousers, disgusted, and I hold onto it again but this time using my sleeve as a protective barrier between the cool metal and my hand. Eventually, the bus gets to the closest stop nearest the wall and I run out, all the way to the Goldilocks Gate.

The Gate looks different during the day, especially on this side of the Wall. Normally at night, I find it to be a beacon on hope at night, as I get to leave the Devil’s Armpit. The glow it gives off from the white lights is angelic, however right now it looks to be the entrance of a prison. Cold and gloomy. Way too sterile and concrete.

I know that because father once took me to me to the highest security prison to show me what happens when I break the law. It’s full of the worst. Murderers, rapists, paedophiles, gang bosses, arsonists. I remember them in their cages, each of them by themselves for their own safety. One too many cellmates have ended up in hospital or dead. Some were mad, like rabid wolves who refuse to acknowledge they lost. The noticeably smaller minority were moping in their cells. Nevertheless, the trip didn’t have a lasting effect. I couldn’t sleep for a week so I kept sneaking out every night to gamble. I even had a running bet with Jack and Martha about whether or not I’d get caught and by who. Martha said the authorities, Jack said by my father. I bet on neither and won.

I hold the tarot card in hand, ready to hand it over. The corners have softened over the past few days, I don’t feel bad about that. I have the feeling that Christopher intends for me to keep it, no matter who I give it to, it’ll come back to me.

I stop dead in my tracks. I didn’t expect to see him there learning against the wire fence around the Gate, arms crossed over his chest, clearly waiting for me. I wonder if Christopher told him my choice, impossible. I only just made it. Unless he knew that I have a choice to make and knew that I’m going to choose to give the card to him. He looks bored for a change, for once he has been waiting for me. I’m still surprised. He doesn’t go out during the day, always prefers the night. I straight my black suit jacket and fix my tie before I walk over to him.

“I didn’t expect to be here.” I say.

“Course, it’s me. Full of surprises, I am. Wanted to make sure that you make the right choice. For yourself.”


	5. Nine of Spades

Jack stands up straight with a big grin on his face. His teeth are clean and off white, unlike the teeth you often find people to have in Proetus. Rotten, black, and gappy mouth. To this day I don’t understand how they still have a large population, _who_ finds those mouths okay to kiss? That’s the real question here.

But I ask a different one instead.

“What makes giving the card to you is the right choice, Jack? What makes you think I care about the right choice?” I ask him, tilting my head.

Jack’s knowing smile doesn’t budge off his smug face. “True, you never cared about the right thing. Just _your_ thing.” He points at me. I don’t feel guilty about the truth. “But people are being nabbed without a reason. _Your_ people this time. Not the people of Proetus. The government are turning on your people now. So now you care. I ain’t too smart, but I do know that people that can make a change, don’t normally start making that change until it’s bad for them too. Often, it’s too late, so let’s hope that it’s not, yeah?”

I breathe out. He is right, but he has the wrong reason for why _I’m_ doing this. “I figured if I help you find that friend of yours, Christopher would help me pay back Piers. With that gift of his, I can try my hand at another game, something that involves bluffing. So, here.” I hand him _The Fool_ card.

Jack’s grin falls off his face and the spark in his eyes goes dull, but he still takes the card. His fingers are black with soot. I feel the urge to gag, but instead I just use hand sanitiser to clean my hands. I’m not sure what he expected me to say, I have a crime lord breathing down my neck and if I don’t pay him back, shit is going to be bad. Very bad. I don’t plan on dying just yet. I haven’t made my fortune yet, however with Christopher’s help, I can go to the casinos in Acrisius and I’ll be golden.

Jack wants a selfless hero, but he’s getting me.

He walks to the gate in silence and gives the guard on shift his ID card. The guard this time is Harry, not Gerald, and I end up having a small conversation with him as I hadn’t seen Harry in quite some time. He catches me up on his family, mainly his eldest son the skater. Jack taps his foot impatiently while I nod my head as Harry rambles on about how his son is trying to become the world champion at skating, and that he had to drop out. Jack grabs my arm and pulls me way from the slightly offended Harry. I apologise to the balding man and tell him I’ll catch up with him another day.

Jack doesn’t talk on the way to wherever he is taking me. I think he’s still mad about my response to doing the right thing. He can’t say much, either, as he is the right-hand man to one of the most feared people in Proetus. His hands are dirtier than Piers, but people just dismiss him as some kid and that’s often the worse thing they could ever do.

I pay attention to the street names, making note of where I’m going for next time, like I know there’s going to be a next time.

 _Gibson Lane, Hardy Street, Wolfe Street, Grey Crescent, Florence Lane_.

I recognise none of them, I’ve never been this way or this far away from the Wall, I prefer to remain close in case I need to get away quick. Not that I’ve ever needed it before because I had Piers’ protection.

The streets are boring, same house fronts, same pavement, same stench, no matter how many times I turn left or right. I’m almost convinced that the architects had decided to copy and paste the streets a few times. While the houses are big, I knew that there is most likely a family to a room, maybe even two rooms if they were lucky, or a whole floor if the land lord is considerate, although that wouldn’t happen.

 _Liverpool Road, Addison Road, Robinson Street_.

I can’t even see the Wall now, not through the smog. Jack takes me down a thin alley, that’s crooked and on a hill. Pointless windows face the alley; pointless because they have no view and pointless because they are filthy. It reeks of death, shit and piss. I cover my nose with my hand – it doesn’t help – but Jack is unbothered by the disgusting odour, I wonder how accustomed he is to such unpleasantries.

We come out on a street called the _Witch Trail_. It’s a wide, open boulevard, filled with people running around and shouting about the goods they have. Children laugh, chickens run around, fallen food rots of the ground, the adults try to yell louder than the stall next to them, some adopting personalities to lure people in.

“BEST SILK AROUND TO MAKE YER GIRL LOVE YEH EVEN MORE. SIR YOU LOOK A LITTLE DOWN, FIGHT WITH THE MISSES? THIS BLUE SILK WILL HELP, IT WILL” Yells one scruffy looking gentlemen.

“Best pork! BEST PORK! Make that stew the BEST stew to make your friends jealous.”

The _Witches’ Market._ This I have heard about through Piers, but I just thought it was a rumour, a myth, a codename for the drug market. He is obsessed with it, he wanted to own it. While I didn’t know much about the Witches’ Market, I thought it was underground, so this must be the front for the real black market. Clever. Jack leads me through the crowds, and people part like the Red Sea at the sight of us. Mothers hold their children closer, children stop laughing, everyone is glaring at me. I’m hated, an alien. Why?

I forgot to change out of my expensive suit. The very thing that sets me apart, makes me an outcast and an intruder in their world. I stand straight, not letting the looks get to me. I’m used to them, I _should_ be used to the glares. I get these hateful stares whenever I visit with my father. All these people know I’m different. I _am_ different. I am _better_ than them. Why aren’t I happy about that?

_Because I’m normally one of them._

I shudder at the thought and straighten my tie as I keep walking, holding my head up high. Someone with no teeth spits on my shoe, I ignore them. Father would make them clean it off with his hanky. They’re lucky that I’m not my father.

Jack leads me around the back of the copied and pasted houses. I notice that the front door has a sign that read “USE BACK DOOR” in red paint on the boards stopping anyone from entering or leaving. It’s just one of the few small ways this house is different. Another way it’s different is that the windows are clean, but the owners have drawn the curtains on the all the windows on the bottom floor. The paint is still dirty and peeling, like the rest of the houses in the street. There isn’t much of a garden, just a small yard filled with strange items. Gramophones, a trumpet, mannequins, a broken grandfather clock, springs, wires, robot limbs, and lamps; all ruined by the rain, but I get the feeling that no one really cares about that. There’s a statue stolen from one of the lords, as well as a broken fountain. The only thing that stops people coming in is a newly painted green gate and a lock, which Jack has the key to.

“Didn’t take you for a hoarder.” I chuckle.

He shrugs, “That’s because it’s not my house, it’s the Doc’s.”

Amongst the rubbish, there is a clear path to the freshly painted red door and wooden stairs that lead to the first floor. Someone had glued small rocks onto the steps, although I can’t think why.

“They’re slippery when it rains, Ms Vandergood can’t get up them too good.” Jack says, answering a question I didn’t ask.

He unlocks the door, but before going in, he pauses. “Don’t mention Topher. Don’t say he gave you a card and whatnot, because they don’t like him. Make up something about changing the government if they ask why you here.”

He opens the door and lets me into to the hall way first, that is filled to the ceiling with books and random trinkets. Sheets of metal, tools, clocks, dials, unused copper pipes. It’s dark with the lack of light but doesn’t smell musty and there’s a metallic taste on my tongue.

BANG!

“Fucking shit balls!” A woman curses from the first door on the right.

I investigate, which is rude, and I’m not at all surprised to find a girl and some sort of strange invention. The girl has dark skin and a round face. Her hair an afro on the top of her head. Welder’s goggles protect her eyes and gloves protect her hands. Her arms are covered in grease and black with oil and so is the heap of metal before her. I suppose it’s rude to call someone’s invention a heap of metal, and it does appear to be humanoid. There are four copper limbs; two weedy arms and two weedy legs, the body has a steel casing over it but the door to the inside of the machine is wide open as the girl works inside of it. None of it shines under the gaslight. The head of the robot is a cube with lights for eyes. He looks like a nightmare with the wiring showing and the mechanics on display, the eyes are unblinking.

“Georgina!” Shouts Jack with a big grin on his face.

The girl takes her goggles off and beams back at him. I stand there awkwardly, swaying a little side to side. She’s not a perfect stranger. If she were, this wouldn’t be so terrible. It gets worse when she notices me, her expression turns sour like she is sucking on a lemon. “Why’d you bring some Acrisius twat here?” Her voice is sharp with anger.

She seems like a delight.

“Now now, Georgina. This is that Elijah fellow I’ve been telling you about. The one who gambles. He wants to join.” He gives her a toothy grin, she crosses her arm and raises an eyebrow, I have a dead expression.

I step forward, knowing that I have to say something to impress the girl before me, not that I want to, nor should I. “This… your invention looks impressive. I’m surprised-“

“Surprised that a _black woman_ is making it. Yeah, well, we’re smart too. Even smarter than your white arse.” She cuts me off.

Anger bubbles inside of me, I never liked Proetus for its lack of manners. Some find it charming, but it’s just rude. “If you let me finish my sentence,” I say coldly to her, “I was going to say that I’m surprised that anyone is trying to create a life size automon when making wind-up birds are incredibly difficult to make. It’s impressive. If it works, and I doubt that it won’t, you’ll have surpassed the technological advancements that Acrisius twats haven’t been able to achieve, which is a robot or android or whatever it is they are called.”

She remains silent for a moment and stares at me. Her expression is unmoving and so is mine. I can see the clogs turning in her brain as she thinks of a response and when she comes up with nothing she points at me with her wrench, “Yeah, you’re alright. Don’t think that this means I like you. Just that you’re alright.”

“Where’s the doc?” Asks Jack, breaking the silence. He looks incredibly pleased.

“Out,” is the response. They both break out into a chatter while I stand there. I don’t sit down, too worried about ruining my suit and there is grime, grease and oil everywhere in this workshop Georgina seems to have.

More tools, bigger tools, on the desks against the walls and the table in the middle where the automon is. I still can’t believe I guessed it was an automon and was right. I never understand technology, and while Proetus’ tech is still primitive, I understand it less than Acrisius’ tech. Or anyone’s tech. I just prefer to gamble. I have a phone, I have a computer. But nothing fancy or special.

I watch Jack and Georgina together, watching how they interact. They smile a lot and laugh. Their bodies are close but not in a romantic way. They even have inside jokes. Jack and I never had that. It was always meet here or meet there. Talk about Piers and setting up meetings with him. Talk about news of the boarder, things that can affect my time gambling. We rarely speak about personally things. He knows about my father, who he is and what he is like, and about my brother; I know about the lack of his family and the struggles he has had to get to here. He introduced me to Piers. Am I jealous? A little. I think everyone is jealous of their friends being closer to someone else. But am I his friend? Or just a business associate?

The back door opens and shuts, “I’m back Georgina!” An elderly man wonders through the door of the workshop. Like Georgina, his has black skin, but his is old and weathered. The man holds himself with too much pride, strong and straight posture, head held high, and chest out like a proud red robin, but with a casual twist with his hands in his pockets rather behind his back and leaning on one leg as he stands at the door. The elderly man’s hair is white, short and curly. It’s well kept, unlike Georgina’s. But like Georgina, they have brown eyes and the same nose. I think they’re related.

“Grandpa!” She smiles at him but doesn’t move from her spot.

“Hello Jack,” he beams. He then turns to me. I wonder if I get a similar reaction off him like I did from Georgina. He looks me up and down. “And you are?”

“Elijah Triggs.”

CLANG!

I think Georgina dropped her wrench on the automon; that’ll leave a dent. The man’s blank expression turns into a smile and he grabs my hand to shake. Firm grip with one, two, three shakes. This man is not of Proetus. But he is awfully cheery to be here.

“I’m Doctor Eli Gutermuth. Your father is an interesting man. I don’t always agree with what he does, but I’m not going to tell him how to do his job if he doesn’t tell me how to do mine.” He grins at me. Very cheery. Not sure if I like that. I smile a simple smile back at him, not knowing what to say. “Sorry, this may seem quite strange to you. I asked Jack a lot about you, you seemed interesting when I first heard that Jack knew you. He pointed you out on the tele when you were having an official visit a year or two ago.”

Again, I say nothing. This _is_ very strange. I don’t know what to say to the man. Jack never said a word about him or his granddaughter. Then again, I never asked about his friends outside of his work. I never saw the point. “I was the one to ask to have you brought here. Jack was very reluctant and well here you are.” He looks me up and down, “A little out of place, might I add, but you are here.”

Please don’t ask why.

Please don’t ask why.

Please don’t ask why.

“Why?”

Shit. What did Jack say at the gate? Something about government change. That’s lying, but I can’t talk about Christopher for some reason. “I was told I could help. Jack promised that he would help me with his employer, Piers.”

I glance at Jack, who has steam coming out of his ears. It switches immediately when Dr Gutermuth turns to look at him.

“You _can_ help, yes. Follow me to the front room.” He ignores what I said about Piers, perhaps he already knows or just doesn’t care that much because he needs me that badly.

He leads me out of the workshop and into the room right beside the front door. The doctor may not care about stepping on the torn-out pages of notebooks, but I still try to be careful. The front room is much tidier than other parts of the house that I’ve seen.

There are books shoved in every nook and cranny, even piled on the heath of the unlit fire. There’s a picture of a couple, the woman looking just like Georgina, except a few years older perhaps. They’re smiling, but I’m not sure why. The chairs are clean and cleared, so I sit down on the pink floral pattern, still looking around and smelling something. Lavender. There’s a strong smell of lavender on the sofa, as if someone had recently poured a whole bottle of perfume on them. Not that I mind, it is much sweeter than the oil. I feel uncomfortable as the grandfather and granddaughter stare at me. Well, mainly the granddaughter. She’s glaring at me.

“I do say that you look too grand to be sat in our little house. I imagine it’s not what you’re used to.” He stands by the dead fire place, there’s soot everywhere and photos of a family on the mantle

“Quite,” I say. I pull on them hem of my jacket.  At least the doctor is making conversation with me instead of observing me like some sort of lab rat. But I can’t help but feel as though I should use the proper mannerisms and language when I talk to him. Unusual. “So, how may I be of service to you, Doctor Gutermuth?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. Sat down on the floral armchair, the doctor still manages to have the pride of Acrisius, but the casualness of Proetus. He leans forward, resting his arms on his knees and holding his hands close to support his head. “Doctor Gutermuth is much too formal, I prefer to be called Doc.”

I tell him that I could never call him that and throw all formalities out of the window when I barely know him. He laughs more, saying something about blue bloods, whatever that means.

“Our friend is missing. Or rather, our government kidnapped him. The one that swore to protect us.” He clenches his jaw and releases that tension a second later. “I’m not going to try to convince you that the government is corrupt, you won’t believe me, and I don’t have much proof on hand.”

 _Good, because I won’t believe you if you did tell me that,_ I think to myself.

“My granddaughter wants anything but an Acrisiusian to help us find him, our friend. But between you and me, she doesn’t see the bigger picture, too busy focusing on the details of it all.”

Her mouth drops open, “Do too! Acisiusians will just betray us, they could never go against the government. Look at what Topher did!”

 _Don’t mention Topher_ , that’s what Jack said. I want to ask now, what did Christopher do? Betray them? How?

I don’t ask, best not to. I tilt my head back at the Doc, “What are you planning?”

“Something big, but I need your help.” Gutermuth stands up, putting his hands in his pocket. “I was once part of Acrisius, I was a doctor there, and very good at it. I’m not going to bore you with the story, I just want to tell you your part of it all. I’m no longer in with the crowd, I don’t know names, I don’t know people or their circles and how to get in.”

“You need me to know those names, get into their circles, don’t you?”

“You’re a smart boy.”

I shrug, “I break the law twice a week without my father knowing, I have to be. What do you need me to do?”

Doctor Gutermuth chuckles. His clothes are much more formal than Georgina’s and Jack’s, red waist coat, pocket watch. A pair of goggles rest on his head, his shirt is bright white. He takes a certain care with his appearance and that’s how I know that he’s not lying about being part of my world once, not when we are all raised with the same manners and thoughts, no one is unique in my world, unless you’re doing something creative or innovative. I do neither.

“Before Collin went missing, he was looking into why others were going missing. He found a name, which is why I believe why _he_ was taken away. We still don’t know loads, we just know that people like Jack and my granddaughter are going missing, abnormals and we know this name. I’ve never heard of it, I assume that you might, given your connections. Casey Flynn, we think he is somewhat involved. Know of him?”

“I’ll see what I can find out.”

***

“Why do I have to wear this itchy garb?” Jack complains.

A few days had passed since my initial meeting with Doctor Gutermuth. I had told the doctor what I knew, which wasn’t much. I don’t really watch the news, nor do I know much about politics, but I knew he was one.

“Because you will look out of place at the casino. Crossing the border is illegal, especially for you coming in to Acrisius. We like keeping the poor out, we think they’ll bring death and destruction with them and no one likes looking at poverty.” I straighten the black tie around Jack’s neck and pull it up to his white collar.

Jack scowls at me, “And that’s why we should be allowed. Maybe if you lot saw the poor and the dying, you might do something about it.”

I roll my eyes and sit back in my seat.

He slouches and whines more, “I still don’t understand why I’m here too.”

“You’re the brawn, I’m the brains. Remember the plan? I’m the flamboyant rich kid who just turned eighteen and you’re my friend who is supposed to make sure I don’t over-do it and is _quiet_.” I hiss. Jack’s accent is going to give him away if he speaks at all, and it’s not like I can teach him how to speak like me in a few days. I was asking for the impossible from him anyway, all Jack ever does is talk.

But out of Georgina, Jack and Doctor Gutermuth, I’d have preferred Gutermuth to be with me. He knows the traditions and values, how to dress and speak and he is smart enough to keep a conversation going. However, he risks getting recognised. I don’t know how he is in Proetus, I’m assuming he was disgraced and thrown out and therefore he would be arrested. He agreed with me and that was the only input he had on the plan other than find Casey Flynn and get him to tell you what he knows. It could be a test. I hope not. I’m getting fucking fed up of these tests to see if I’m up for the job, but I couldn’t say that to him.

The limo stops outside of the casino. Jack goes to let himself out, but I slap his hand and wait for the chauffer to open it. He glares at me and nurses his hand. I stick my tongue at him.

The chauffer opens the door and I step out first, shouting, “Today’s my birthday!” I grin and swing my arms in the air and then wrap them around Jack’s shoulder, pulling him down to my height, not letting go, even as I feel him struggling to walk without tripping either of us up.

Bright lights, red carpets, men in the richest suits they could buy with the prettiest thing on their arms, the boom boom boom of the music made my heart pound and my head spin.

 **“** Woo!” I shout in Jack’s ear, I have a part to play and I am going to play it.

I feel like I’m going to the Oscars or some shit. I am definitely living my dream that’s for sure. My suit is perfect, loud and colourful. It is a bright green with a playing card and poker chip pattern on it, a gift from Martha for my seventeenth. It’s a little stiff, but that’s because it’s still brand new. It was never my thing then and it still isn’t my thing, but it does scream that I’m a newbie with cash to splash and throw away to the casino.

Inside was even more grand than the outside and from the first-floor banister, I can see the entire casino. Walls made of gold, and the carpets stained with blood. Soaring ceilings for the giant egos that are all talking and gossiping, sharing secrets and creating alliances. Women flirt with the men no matter their age, showing off pieces of their body, seducing them with boobs, legs, back and arse. I can see why I shouldn’t be allowed in here.

Most of the people are white, anyone else receives a few strange looks, which is why I couldn’t let Georgina come. She would stand out and perhaps cause a scene at the racism she would receive tonight. She has every right to, but it wouldn’t help our current goal, and no one’s mind will have changed. I know rich white people in power, they are ignorant and stubborn. That’s why I picked Jack, it would be okay, so long as he didn’t talk. He is white, even with the tan, he can defend himself or me if something goes wrong and he knows how to play some of the poker games.

“I have something to tell you.” Yells Jack over the noise. “I figured that you can’t win some secrets in blackjack. So I asked Topher to come to help you cheat at the other games.”

I don’t give Jack enough credit. I wrap my arms around him to say thanks and that’s what Jonathon Patterson would do. I let go and lean on the banister to search the crowd. “We’re looking for someone in their forties,” that doesn’t help narrow the list of suspects down one bit, “Martha says he likes to drink whiskey,” again doesn’t help much. “With Asian women around him.”

“That don’t help.” Jack sighs. “That’s like everyone.”

“He’s a politician from a wealthy background, they are all made to be the same. Copied and pasted. Made in a factory.”

“He’s the man in the purple velvet suit.” I jump at the familiar voice behind me. Christopher. “By the roulette table. He quite likes it there, so do you think that luck is on your side?” he leans in the banister in-between me and Jack and gives me with a smirk. Jack glares at him, whatever Christopher did, he isn’t happy about it either.

Christopher looks smart in his black suit, and I can’t help but smirk at his carrot coloured hair. He looks like a Weasley.

 _“And you look like a leprechaun threw up on you so shut up.”_ He says in my head.

“There’s no luck, there’s only strategy when it comes to gambling.” I finally answer out loud, not wanting Jack to feel left out.

“And what’s yours?”

“You. Also, new term added to me helping. You help me pay back Piers once this is over.”

“Finding out where your brother is isn’t enough?” He raises his eyebrow. I notice Jack glancing at me from the corner of his eye.

I keep a dead expression as I say response. “Samuel could be dead and then I’m no better off than I was before. Help me with Piers and then at least one of the Triggs children will be alive.”

I don’t let him answer and grab Jack’s arm to pull him down the stairs with a huge grin on my face that makes me want to die on the spot. I push through the crowd of people, telling them move out of my way in a jolly tone, which makes me want to die. Too busy caught up in their games to pay attention. I can’t blame them, or judge them, I’m the same as them. I notice one thing that I couldn’t see before: the cameras. On every wall and corner, built into the tables. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s cameras in the slot machines and on the employees themselves. Everyone is under the eyes in the sky. Can’t cheat. Can’t steal. But I’ve got something that no one else has, Carrot Top Christopher.

I get to the table and hand over a lot of money to the dealer. I mention to the lady that it’s my birthday and hand her a fake ID. Not the one that I use to cross the border, I asked Martha to pull some strings to get one that says today I turn eighteen and that my name is Jonathon Patterson. Jack uses his own ID because he is already of age.

I know the rules in theory, I know quick strategy of what to bet on. When I get my first win then I can buy everyone at the table a round of drink. I rub my chin, thinking about what to bet on as Jack places his bets onto the table. We agreed minimum bets only. I place my chips onto reds and even and a couple on some odd numbers, like three, fifteen, thirty-three.

I place my hands in my suit trouser pocket and find it to be empty. Of course it would be, I left my lucky brown chip at home to avoid playing with it. I didn’t want to lose it, or risk it being stolen or have to answer any question about why a new eighteen-year-old has a poker chip. A brown one at that, and it’s not like my current chips are brown. They’re yellow. I hate yellow.

I couldn’t help but feel a little anxious because I didn’t have my lucky chip with me. I had left it in my bedside table to

The dealer waves her hand as the ball starts to drop and we all wait impatiently for it to land. I can feel everyone at the table leaning closer in.

Six!

As I wait for the dealer to sort out the winnings, I call over a waiter, “Get a round for the table, I’m feeling lucky tonight!” I grin as I hand her 100,000 units.

This gets me different reactions. A few odd looks as people assume that I’m a camp homosexual, Jack cringes to himself and everyone else looks at me with delights because of what I just offered. But more importantly it gets the attention of the man in a purple velvet suit, surrounded by Asian women. He’s balding a little but his face is eerily young and plastic, completely unmoving.

“Hey kid, that’s awful nice of you. But aren’t you a little young to be in a casino?”

I wave my hands around in a fruity way, “Oh no, I’m not a kid, it’s my birthday!” I grin. “It’s my first time in a casino, so I don’t know how this all really works,” I wave my hand to the table and take my winnings. “I just know that’s what people do here, show their wealth and I’m all about doing what the Romans do when in Rome.” I smirk.

That’s what gambling is to the rich. It’s not about how much you win, it’s how much you can afford to lose. Everything from reputation to lifestyle is on the line, but people admire you for how much you can throw away instead of trying to win the game. It’s not worth the risk, considering that the odds favour the house, never the player.

 _“You have peeked his curiosity, but you need to bet a little bigger and bolder this time.”_ Carrot Top says in my head.

I smile, a real smile and I think it freaks Jack out, but for once it’s nice to have that sabotaging voice on my side. I mean, it’s still in my head, but this works out much better than before. I place higher bets on the same the things as before, noticing Mr Flynn watching me with care. I don’t stop smiling as the ball spins round and round the wheel, even though my cheeks ache and I’m freaking out Jack.

The ball drops again, landing on a three.

My heart stops. For a moment. Jack shakes me wake and I jump up squealing. I wrap my arms around him, “I guess luck is on my side today!” He peels me off him, rightfully so. I hate myself for it too.

“Go you, birthday boy,” I shiver at Mr Flynn’s voice, but I try not show with a bright grin. “What’s your name?”

“Patterson. Jonathon Patterson.” _Always say your surname, it’s more important than your forename,_ I can practically hear my father’s lessons. Who knew that they would be useful doing things he wouldn’t approve of.

“I’m Casey Flynn,” he didn’t use father’s rule. “People I like get to call me Casey.”

Be bold, that’s what Carrot Top said, that’s how I’ll keep his interest. At least until he can’t remember the night. “Do you like me, Casey?”

He eyes me up and down with his beady blue eyes. Mr Flynn licks his lips a little, I don’t think he wants me to notice. Jack did though, and he shuffles closer towards me in a protective manner, like he does when I decide to go to sketchier bars and play poker with drunker people. He’s given plenty of black eyes and second-degree burns making sure the scum doesn’t lay their hands on me, and in return, I’ve given him their losses in return.

_“Be careful Elijah, he doesn’t have clean thoughts right now.”_

So he’s a closeted gay man. Or bisexual and that’s bad for rep. He’ll lose his job and get shunned. His wife will leave him, children will hate him, and these women won’t want to know him.

I wonder what he’d tell me if I blackmail him?

_“You could be hurt and that’s what you’re thinking?”_

I ignore Carrot Top and focus on Mr Flynn.

“You’ve got balls at _roulette._ But it’s an easy game with easy wins.” Mr Flynn mocks.

An easy game in which the house has the upper hand, you end up losing more money if you bet on more things and if you place higher bets, which everyone does because it’s tempting and easy.

So easy in fact that lives have been ruined because of this game. It’s so easy that actually it’s really difficult to not over do it, but what do I know, I’m just a kid.

“Let’s play five card draw then,” I grin, waving my hands around. “I never played before, should be fun.”

A wide smile stretches across his face. “I’ll teach you.” He leaves the table and I follow behind him with Jack on my heel.

Jack whispers the concerns his has down my ear, but I pay no notice. I’m here to get information, and I intend to get it. Winners win. Period.

I sit down at the empty table, with Jack to my left and My Flynn to my right and Mr Flynn’s hoard of Asian women surrounding us to watch. I imagine they’re bored, I would rather join in that watch, but they probably don’t have any money to burn on gambling, just on dresses and cosmetic surgery. That’s the sex divide, that’s what determines what rich men and women do with their cash to splash. Gamble or look young as possible. But looking young makes you look like a freaky doll that walks and talks, but at least they have the same amount of braincells.

We exchange money for chips and Mr Flynn gets a white disk as he is the person to the left of the dealer. Mr Flynn tells me that he is going to start easy by playing with an ante instead of a big blind, so we all place forward 20,000 units before we’ve even begun. I have an idea how to play, after the banning to play blackjack with Jack and Martha, this is one of the other games we tried. The dealer deals the deck swiftly, with the cards faced down on the mossy green table.

“Now you look at them. If don’t like your hand, you can fold – quit the game – or you can bet more or keep your ante.” Mr Flynn explains to me with a condescending tone. I can smell the alcohol on his breath, but he isn’t nearly as drunk as I want him to be.

I pick up my hand, not that surprised to find that they are plastic cards and they are all from the same deck, unlike the cards used to gamble with in Proetus. I have no hands to play, not even a pair and my high card is eight. But I grin at my hand anyway.

My Flynn’s face is blank as he raises, betting 50,000 units and he doesn’t tell me what he’s doing. Why would he? He could win.

 _“He has a pair Elijah and he now thinks that you have a great hand, so he is going to scare you off.”_ Says Carrot Top. I grin more and wiggle my body with joy.

I decide to match his bet and watch his face carefully. Stiff. Stoney. Dead. Unreadable. The perfect poker face. Martha was always terrible at not showing her delight or distain at her hands. She speaks with her eyebrows a little more than she hopes. We always scare her out of the game when her hand is good, but don’t push too hard when her hand is bad, so when it gets to the showdown, she loses, sulking badly, having a strop.

Jack on the other hand, has a challenging time with being quiet, but when he plays poker, he bites on the corners of his lips when he has a good hand. I can see him trying to hide his smirk right now as he too calls the bet.

Casey discards three cards from his hand and receives three more. His face is still cold and unmoving. It’s almost scary at how calm he is about this. I don’t understand

I need to change that.

_“He has two pairs now, you are screwed when it comes to the show down.”_

I throw away one of my cards, deciding to keep up the fact that I have a good hand.  The dealer gives me a card and I still have nothing. I still smile away though. My cheeks ache, I wish I picked a more sombre role, but then I may not have gained Casey’s attention.

“So, John, where do you come from? By the sounds of it you’ve never been to Acrisius.”

As Jack silently throws away two of his cards, I lie to Mr Flynn, “Oh here and there.” Of course I hadn’t fleshed out my lie before I got here, my mind races to find somewhere that I could be from. “My father owned a colony down south and then he sold it a few years ago.” That’s what my mother’s uncle did, so I might as well steal his story.

There’s another round of betting, Mr Flynn decides to double his initial bet and I decide to fold. I don’t want to lose anymore money and he seems confident with hand, I would be with two pair.

“And then what did you do?”

Shit. “Move to New Atlantis across the pond.”

He smiles at me, “Oh, that’s interesting. I never get any time to go because of my work, but I used to go often in my younger days. What do you think of it?”

I don’t fucking know. I’ve never been. But I keep lying and about how I adore their fashions, how it always pushes the dimensions of what beauty is; their food is glorious and unique, something you can never find really find here; and finally art is more appreciated for what it is, rather than what it isn’t, speaking volumes about our current world and the politics and the hate between everyone. That’s everything I’ve heard Martha say at least once before.

Jack calls to Mr Flynn’s bet, I can tell that he’s playing it safe, perhaps due to him never having this much money in his possession and he doesn’t want to spend all my gambling money and half of my savings. I appreciate it, but I know that he doesn’t want to face Martha’s wrath when she finds out what we did. Hopefully that won’t happen for a while.

Both show their cards, two pairs vs three of a kind, Jack takes the pot. He grins brightly as the dealer pushes all of the chips towards him, and I’ve never been more relieved that he has decent teeth for someone from that hell hole. I cheer and clap for my friend, hugging him. He tenses up underneath my embrace, not that I blame him and when I let go, he calls a waiter over to whisper in her ear.

I hope that he isn’t flirting.

As the next round starts, the waiter places three cokes besides us. I give Jack a puzzled look, tilting my head and then thanking him loudly, beaming at him with pure joy.

_“He ordered two normal fizzy drinks and one double vodka and coke.”_

For the next hour, that’s how it goes. Whenever Jack or I won anything, we would make sure ours was a virgin drink and order him something that was triple or a double vodka. I acted louder and became bolder with my bets. I slurred my words a little and became cuddlier than I was when I first came into the casino. I mainly clung onto Jack’s arm, laughing a little whenever I felt him tense up. Eventually, he stopped going stiff and would relax when I was being touchy with him however I don’t think that he will ever want me to hug him again after tonight. I don’t blame him. Casey is more emotive when he saw his hands the more drunk he got, often sighing when he saw what he got but his face would light up like a Christmas tree if it was any good. A good thing too, Carrot Top couldn’t keep reading his mind due to it getting jumbled the more he drank.

He did start to complain about his job a little, saying how he isn’t happy about… well isn’t happy, but he can’t help that ‘the project guy ran away, cuz he felt guilty’, putting him in a difficult position because now he needs to find a replacement.

I try to ask him more about what he means, but he just presses a finger to his lips and goes “Secrets.”

Someone else sits at the table with us, but I pay them no attention as we all place down the ante.

The cards are placed before us and I check them. They aren’t that bad, a queen pair is a pretty decent hand. Casey smiles at his hand, so assume his are good too. Probably not as good as mine, or he can’t see what he has, or he has no idea what’s happening.

I lean towards him, “Why don’t we bet secrets?”

He looks at me, his head thrown back as he stares at me at the bottom of his eyes. “What secrets?” He hiccups.

“You could bet information about that project and who runs it and I could bet a little something about the royal family.” I grin.

Jack grabs on my lapel and brings my face close to his. I keep smiling. “What are you doing?” he hisses at me. “If you lose, you will be betraying Martha.” I keep my smile as he searches my eyes for answers, “You planned that from the start.”

I remove Jack’s fingers one by one and pull out a red envelope from my inside pocket. The additional player appears to be intrigued.

“How do we know that it’s not empty?” The lonely gentleman asks. I hold it up to the light, showing the shadow of the letter and the writing.

I place it back into my pocket, saying how I don’t plan on giving it up yet as it’s worth all in from the other players and for Casey it’s worth his secrets about his job. Everyone agreed, in my world secrets are priceless, but if someone is going to tell it, then it will be worth the cash. We all make a bet of 40,000 units, the minimum bet, each of us curious about the secrets that Casey and I hold.

The round of drawing begins. I lose one card and gain another queen, making my hand a three of a kind.

I watch Jack draw two cards, observe the new player as he discards one card, as does Casey. And then the betting pursues.

No one folds, no throws their cards the table, no one looks pissed off. Casey beams at his cards, I keep a cool neutral look, Jack bites down on the corners of his lips and the newcomer glances at everyone.

I place down the envelope, resting it against the chips. Jack pushes his huge pile of chips into the pot as does the new player. Casey chucks in a handkerchief, his drunk version of the envelope.

We all glance at each other, the show down.

Carrot Top isn’t speaking to me, I think he wants to add to the suspense and to make sure that I don’t do anything that shows I know the answer.

I show my cards first and study their faces, how they falter and fall as they realise that I’m the winner; even Jack’s swept up in the moment and forgets that he’s on my side.

I beam at them, resting my elbows on the table, my head in my hands. The new player slowly realises what I’ve done, the dealer doesn’t care. Casey smiles back. He really does like me, doesn’t he?

No body else shows their hands, they don’t have to. We all know that I won, even with my low hand.

What were the odds of that?

“So, what you wanna know? Wait wait…” Casey waves his hands about and gets up. He stumbles, falling back into his chair, the Asian arm candy help him back to his feet. “I tell yeh alone, don’t none of these,” he burps, “People to listen in. Don’t know who’s a spy.” He smirks at my lazily, beckoning me to follow him to wherever.

 _“Shit be careful,”_ says Carrot Top.

I ignore his warning and follow Mr Flynn again through the crowds of people. There are still so many people here, if not more and it’s the middle of the night. Men are still celebrating with their wins, nursing their losses with alcohol and laughing at the stony women who are brave enough to play with them.

He leads me to one of the private bathrooms and our feet tap on the cream marble floor as we entre through the rose wood door. Unlike most bathrooms, there’s a lovely hint of rose in the air rather than the shit you normally smell. Above the marble sink is a beautiful antique mirror hanging on the rose gold walls. There is a warm chandelier hanging above us and the marble toilet. It pays well to be a casino, stealing money of the clients. I couldn’t help but have a strange feeling in my stomach, so I look at myself in the mirror and straighten up my tie. I notice the dark bags under my eyes, I’m normally home by now; I doubt that I’ll be home anytime soon either.

“Earlier you mentioned a project, what is it?” I ask, getting straight to it.

Mr Flynn flops onto the armchair in the corner. I wouldn’t do that, imagine the germs it has. “We take in,” he hiccups, “Weird people that have magic.”

Now we know for sure that the government have these people. “What do you do to them?”

“Don’t know. I just send my men out to bring them in.”

“What’s the name of the project.”

“Something foreign.” He spits. Great, a racist with a fetish for Asians.

“Who runs the project?”

“Dane Phillips, but he probably dead. Them weirdos might have found him and killed him after what he did to them.”

My stomach drops.

He can’t be dead. It would be on the news… that I don’t watch or care about.

“Now, no more questions love,” Mr Flynn uses the armrest of the fluffy pale armchair to help him up. “Now it’s time for payment.”

I stare at him, confused. I won. Fair and square. I won. Didn’t cheat. I won. That secret is mine.

“Don’t look at me like that, you think that secret is worth a little money?”

Of course. Gambling is all about how much you can throw away and still be filthy rich. I take a step back towards the door, but he stumbles closer. I can hear my heart beating in my ears, this is not good.

“You owe me something that money can’t buy. A kiss from you.”

There’s a lump of bile at the back of my throat. My head spins. He’s bigger and he’s stronger and he’s drunk. Me? I’m a little underweight, shorter than him, and don’t know self-defence. I’ve got Jack for that.

I run towards the door and jiggle at the handle to find that it’s locked. I tug at it louder. My lungs burn. I’ve been holding my breath

Casey grabs my arm, dragging me away from the door. He forces his dry, cracked lips on mine. I struggle against him, but his hold my wrists hurt.

THUD!

THUD!

THUD! BANG!

I hear the clang of the door handle as it falls to the floor and heavy footsteps; I feel a hand on my chest, shoving me away from My Flynn, but Mr Flynn still has me in his strong grip. Jack throws a calculated swing at him, right in the nose. I fall back, hurting my arse on the cold, cream marble floor. Jack has Mr Flynn against the wall, his fists are balls of fire as he threatens the bastard. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I see Mr Flynn’s eyes and the fear in them. Jack lets him go and he goes limping away with his bloody face.

Jack crouches down to my level, placing a hand on my shoulder. He’s clean, so I don’t mind it. “Breathe in,” he says.

And I do.

“Now breathe out. Deep breaths. You good?” I can see the concern in his brown eyes, no trace of the fiery anger I just witnessed. He furrows his brow too. A pity look. I don’t like that pitying expression.

“No I’m not fucking okay. My arse hurts.” I whine.

We both give out the same breathy laugh. Not a real laugh, but it’s soothing on.

The door swings open again and Carrot Top walks in. He’s out of breath too. He’s hair is no longer neat and tidy, and I think I see sweat.

“While you were getting information and risking your life,” he pants out as he stares at me, “And you,” now he glares at Jack, “Were saving a life, neither of you picked up the god damn envelope and Steve, the other player, took it!”

Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.


End file.
